In todays world we hear a lot about police officers wearing body cameras, the thinking around this is that it helps to deal with complaints of excessive force and also in evidence gathering.  I think this logic is quite sound in reality, its awfully hard to dispute a camera, both as an officer but also as a civilian.

We also see a seriously large number of people recording interactions with the police, fire, and EMS, which by and large is legal and within their first amendment rights, even if its annoying as all get out.  I can’t tell you the number of times I have been filmed doing my job, many times because I simply don’t notice, my stance is that as long as they stay out of the way I could care less, in fact I wish they would tell me after the fact so i can use that as a tool for my own growth.

Its no secret that I support body cameras on EMS workers, the chaos of running a code or other traumatic event a video recording with a time stamp would be invaluable, it is also a good tool for when the EMS person is accused of something or is assaulted.  We can not record our patients without their permission currently due to privacy concerns but I foresee it happening.  This does not keen our patients aren’t recording us, in my home state of Minnesota it is legal to record an interaction with anyone so long as one person knows they are being recorded, cameras are getting smaller, and cell phones are getting better and easier to set up to record, and I am fairly certain the time will come that video of an interaction with myself and my partners will surface on YouTube my sincere hope is I remembered to comb my hair, and that I don’t screw up.

The last is a bit of a tongue in cheek statement, recording of any type of emergency worker be it police, fire, or EMS lends itself to a great deal of armchair quarterbacking as well as legal issues if you are recorded doing your everyday job like wrestling a chemically enhanced patient or working a code, someone somewhere is going to take issue.

So for now I always assume I am being recorded by something or someone and try to act accordingly