Not being medically trained or a technician or anything I don't really know enough to pursue this further. Obviously the post touches on other issues such as arrival time being the measure of performance, but I don't want to go down that route today. What I am tempted to ask though (and I'm playing a bit of devils advocate here) is: If there is no great benfit from having a paramedic first on scene, is there any great benefit in having paramedics at all?