Most jobs today you are either able to flex schedule (where you choose your hours) or you have a set schedule (work 9am-5pm), but in EMS we have a set start time, and the off time is usually sometimes close when you are supposed to be off. Confusing I know! EMS shifts can be either 24 hours, 20 hours, 16 hours, 13 hours, 12 hours, 10 hours, 8 hours, or 6 hours. Sometimes they can be longer or shorter depending on if you are working on a special event like a festival or concert.
Off times
Off times in EMS is what drives most people who work in EMS away (as well as pay). Let’s say you are scheduled for a 12-hour shift (very typical shift, 12-hour shift 4 days a week = 48-hour work week). You are scheduled to work from 7:30am to 7:30pm. Your chances of getting off on time are roughly 50/50. Let’s say 7:15pm dispatch tells you that you can head back to the station (to go home for the day) but you get 2 miles from the station and an emergency comes in that you are 1 mile from. You will get that emergency call since you are the closest ambulance to it. You are now not getting off on time!
More times than not emergency calls seem to go in waves there will be a lot of emergency calls for a couple of hours then it seems to have an hour break and then a lot of emergency calls for a couple of hours and so forth. Some days the emergency calls do not stop coming in and there are days when barely any emergency calls are coming in.
Sometimes as it gets near your off time there are a lot of emergency calls, and they will need to hold you past your off time, so we have ambulances in case any more calls come in. This can mean you will get off 2 to 3 hours and sometimes longer past your off time.
Imagine you plan to do something after work, but you are now going to be held for 3 hours past your off time. Your plans after work are now ruined. You will learn quickly if you are new to EMS that we never plan anything after work. Expect to always stay past your off time!
Comparing apples to oranges
I know other jobs can be stressful and long hours (I know this working at General Motors and a Boat repair place). EMS can also be very stressful and very long hours too. Here’s a funny story about a patient I had:
I get called for an accident with a person unresponsive. Arrived on scene one vehicle pulled out of gas station and T-Boned another vehicle (very low speed, minor damage). The vehicle that hit the other vehicle had a person who was unresponsive. I start banging on the window to see if we can wake them up. Which they did and started driving more into the vehicle they had already hit. After some more yelling and banging on the window I was able to get the driver to open their door. I pulled the keys out of the ignition and got the person out. We get the person into the ambulance, and we question them about what happened and what is going on. They tell the police and us that they have been working really long hours. They say, “Man I been working 10-hour shifts”. Police looks at us (EMS) as asks how many hours you are working today, we stated we are at 18 hours. Police asks fire how many hours you are working today they say 24 hours. Longer story short. Asked them if they had anything to drink which they denied being they came from work. They failed a breathalyzer and sobriety test.
The best part is this person was trying to tell us that their job was way harder, more stressful, and longer hours than we could ever even imagine. While this person’s job may be stressful, and I am sure it is hard work (most jobs are) they have no clue what we do or how hard our job can be. I guess the moral of this story is to not compare apples to oranges. Also do not drink and drive!
Here’s another story, I kind of felt bad for this person.
Get called for accident with rollover. Arrived on scene fire is getting a person out of a vehicle that is upside down. Once the person was out of the vehicle, they said they were fine and refused us. We talked them into letting us check them out. While in the ambulance the story unfolds. The person just lost their spouse a couple of weeks ago and has been having a hard time dealing with it. So, they go to the bar to drink and ease the pain. They blew a .42 on the breathalyzer. Now we must take them to the hospital because something could be broken, and alcohol thins your blood like water, so we want to make sure there is no internal bleeding. The sad part was they were 3 houses from theirs and they did not cause the accident. A 16-year-old speeding and blew a stop sign in a subdivision which T-Boned our patients vehicle causing it to roll its roof. Both vehicles were in the wrong our patient was the one who got the ticket for the cause of the accident due to being intoxicated.
EMS doesn’t do anything with the law, but not sure how the person that technically caused the accident got away with no ticket.
How many hours do you work per day? Do you think you could work a shift like EMS?
For questions or comments post below.
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