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A Colorado paramedic has been sentenced to five years in prison for the death of Elijah McClain in a rare prosecution of medical responders that has left officials rethinking how they treat people in police custody.

Colorado’s ambulance services are stretched dangerously thin — which spells trouble for residents and overworked EMTs and paramedics. »Ê¹ÚÍøÖ· statehouse reporter Lucas Brady Woods sat down with In The NoCo's Robyn Vincent to explain why they are on the brink of collapse.

The American College of Emergency Physicians will vote at an October meeting on whether to formally disavow its 2009 position paper supporting excited delirium as a diagnosis. The American College of Emergency Physicians’ 2009 white paper proposed that individuals in a mental health crisis, often under the influence of drugs or alcohol, can exhibit superhuman strength as police try to control them, and then die from the condition.

A draft report from Colorado’s EMS Sustainability Task Force found that emergency medical services are at risk of disappearing in many parts of the state. They’re facing a lack of funding, staffing shortages and declining volunteerism.

Colorado lawmakers voted to advance a bill Wednesday that would shift emergency medical service licensing power away from counties to the state, starting in July 2024.

More than 100 agencies across Colorado have approval from the state to allow medics to use ketamine, an anesthetic, on people who show signs of what's often dubbed "excited delirium," a practice that is now drawing national criticism from anesthesiologists and psychiatrists.

Firefighting and EMS careers are historically male-dominated. But one group of women hopes to change that.Aims Community College held their first Young…