Flight medic salary and is it worth it?

[BEorP]

With all of the discussion on the dangers of air ambulance service recently, I became interested in knowing what the salaries of these flight medics generally are in the USA. I know that it will vary by region, but I am curious to see any numbers. The follow-up question will then be, is it enough and why if not money do people do it? Love of the job? Because it is "cool" to be a flight medic?

[FormerEMSLT297]

Probably not .... is it "worth it" ...

being a firefighter and running into burning buildings ?

Being a cop and getting shot maybe killed for 40, 50 70 grand a year ???

Being an E-3 military person in Iraq, making i dunno 20K ?

I could go on and on,, but what is your point ???????????????

At some point yopu just have to say, we are lucky that there are people like us, who like to take jobs like this.

+

[paraloco]

Where I live it is not worth it. The pilots and nurses make decent money, and have good insurance. The medics don't make much, and they have crappy insurance. They fly because they like it, because they believe they are part of an elite, or because they think it looks cool to wear those big ol' helmets. I take my hat off to the Hermann Life Flight crew who flew my son, gotta love em. But its still not worth it (for me). 2 laws at work Gravity and Averages. I've been in several severe MVA's and walked away without a scratch.

[chbare]

I think the real issue is the fact that people have to ask themselves this question. Why should we accept this job as risky? Yes, you can drop dead getting out of bed in the morning; however, when people are asking these kinds of questions, perhaphs something needs to change.

Take care,

chbare.

[DirtJerZ]

I would guess they would get paid what a street medic would get paid and with commensurate. In New Jersey you need 5 years street experience and some type of critical care course and a 1 week survival course. I think this is a good living but nothing you can get too wealthy doing.

[BEorP]

Thanks for the replies. Does anyone who is willing to share know what a typical flight medical salary would be?

[mstovall]

A friend of mine flew for AirEvac for a while. He said he was making between $800-$900/week. Another friend of mine is working for PHI and is making between $1300-$1700/week, but he is also a PAC. I think he is equivalent to a manager/supervisor. I have not seen their checks, but this is what they report to be true. Others may way in on actual earnings.

Michael

[TJZ]

Here they make what a similar level ground crew would. I however do not see the greatly increased danger. I know that we are talking about it a lot currently and in fact we just had a bad fatal crash here in WI. However, it was the first in 22 years. One fatal crash in 22 years. Those are better odds than driving to an office job every day. (As long as you don't count the car drive in to go to work as a flight medic lol)

[Just Plain Ruff]

i read somewhere (don't quote me) but that for the entire air ambulance industry, I'm assuming fixed wings are in there too that they transport about 1/2 million patients per year. That seems high but I'm thinking that's the number they gave.

So we have 9 fatal helicopter crashes this year with 4 souls per helicopter (patient, pilot, medic and nurse) that is 36 dead if all 4 die in each crash. Now add 4 more because one crash was a double helicopter crash and that's 40 people.

Now take the 500K and multiply that by 4 because of 4 people on board and that's 2million people per year flying and transporting.

so 40 into 2000000 is a fatality rate of 0.000002 percent. Seems like a pretty safe profession to me.

I know it might not seem safe if you are one of those killed but in the overall scheme of things, it's pretty damned safe.

Unfortunately - one crash per decade is too many but that is part of the game and part of the risk.

disclaimer *****My figures may not be completely accurate***** but they are close according to the article that I read.

Oh I remember where I saw it - USA Today Section A July 1, 2008 paper.

[jmp6753]

I recently looked into being a flight medic for a regional air transport provider. As a 7 year medic, my starting wage would be $20.77 per hour. They work a 36 hour work week based on a 12 hour rotation. There is minimal overtime due to an abundance of part-time medics.

20.77 x 36 hrs a week = $747.72

747.72 x 52 wks a year = $38,881.44 annual

And of course that is all before Uncle Sam's portion.

Thats over a $20,000 per year pay cut for me.

Too bad....cuz flying is cool....