When to Contact Emergency Services

When to Contact Emergency Services

From time to time at MVGC events, we have issues with participants taking it upon themselves to call emergency services (police, EMS, fire, etc.). While we fully support calling these emergency responders when warranted, you need to be absolutely sure the situation merits it.

Calling emergency services when the situation does not merit it puts our ability to use facilities and sites at risk, causes unnecessary medical bills, brings unwanted public scrutiny on our weird hobby, and needlessly disrupts events. It's also a disgusting amount of drama, and I'm tired of it.

The following situations warrant calling emergency services:

Structure fires. If you can do so safely, please attempt to extinguish fires yourself using the camp's fire extinguishers.

Criminal behavior, particularly active violence. However, depending on the severity of this, we'd prefer that you come to a staff member first. We have never yet had a substantiated instance of violence or theft at an MVGC event - although we've had a number of allegations which have all been proven false. Fraudulently calling the police while at an MVGC, Inc. event is grounds for permanent banning.

Serious injury. This means serious blood loss, compound fractures (bone coming out of skin), etc. DO NOT call EMS for a twisted ankle or minor injuries. We have qualified medical personnel on staff, so for non-life-threatening injuries they should always be your first stop. If the person can speak and move, you probably shouldn't be calling an ambulance. Many injuries can be adequately treated on-site by our personnel, and at no cost to you.

I would very much appreciate everyone's cooperation with this.

XOXO,

Dave

Categories: Conduct