You might be working for Rural EMS If......

[Alcomedicism]

Your mobile phone in your ambulance is a rotary dial.

You take your date out on megacodes.

There are tobacco juice stains down one or both sides of the ambulance.

Your ambulance siren is a surplus WWII air raid siren.

Your ambulance is a 4x4 (Four Wheel Drive), and you enter it in "mud hops."

Your ambulance radio is a CB.

Your ALS spare kit consists of bandaids.

You have on board a #00 catheter.

Your bedpan is made of metal, and you got it from government surplus.

Your ambulance is from government surplus.

You have a tow winch on the front of your ambulance and you got it from (you guessed it) government surplus.

Your ambulance has a designated driver when you're at the "Dew Drop Inn Bar and Grill" (After a run of course!).

You don't have a problem taking a short cut to the scene via an old logging road or power line road.

You carry a deer rifle during deer season, just in case you see the "big one."

You brake for wildlife crossing the road

(Bears can seriously damage your front end!).

Your triage scissors don't have blunt tips.

You use 2" X 1" wood boards for long boards for I.V.s.

Your drug kit carries a six pack.

You never have to worry about taking pregnant patients to the hospital.

(I ain't ridin'in that thing!!).

You get your O2 from Boss Hawg & Sons Welding Shop.

Uncle Boss Hawg makes your antifreeze from the leftovers from his "still."

You made your stretcher from Boss Hawg & Sons Welding Shop scrap (and it is rated to 1/2 ton! Great for transporting Big George!).

Boss Hawg & Sons Junkyard has all the parts to keep your ambulance running.

You made your backboard from scrap from Boss Hawg & Sons Lumber Mill

(They're into everything aren't they?).

Your tie-down straps for your backboard are whatever you can get your hands on.

Most of your EMT's are related one way or another.

You don't transport "out-of-staters" or anyone who is from above the Mason-Dixon Line.

The Amish get their buggies off the road when you are coming!

Doing 60 - 80 mph at night, in the rain, on a small country road doesn't bother you.

Just the fact of the ambulance arriving on scene breaks up bar fights

(EMT Jethro uses railroad ties to work out).

The local police ask you if the scene is safe.

You carry explosives on board for those "special occasions."

The ATF, FBI or CIA never come to your county.

You rely on the "Handyman's Secret Weapon" to fix almost everything - Duct Tape.

You clean out the back of your ambulance by parking it on a hill and flushing out the back.

You still don't have 911, let alone Enhanced 911.

Your county Address Locator book was a school project from Ms. Wills' 6th grade class.

Locations to a person needing EMS service might be, "The second house from the boulder were Jethro wrecked his truck."

Local news stations will not cover you, because the "The last time we were here you guys...."

Everytime you are in the vicinity of "Hootin Holler" in the middle of the night, you hit the siren to get everyone's dogs barking and howling.

You give some of your patients complimentary "Odor Eaters" for their shoes.

When you went to vacuum out the cab of your ambulance, the vacuum jammed up.

-Dixie

[THE_DITCH_DOCTOR]

If you've ever hit a deer with the ambulance and then had a fund raising venison dinner for the service.

[VillageEMT]

"You carry a deer rifle during deer season, just in case you see the "big one." "

Who needs a rifle. We go hunting in any season with a Ford 450 Automatic.

[Ztenec]

If you've ever hit a deer with the ambulance and then had a fund raising venison dinner for the service.

[bandaidpatrol]

.. you've ever hit a skunk before you left that station..

(heated floors, things like to sleep on it like animals & snakes, we get water snakes & copperheads often)

.. you actually carry a snake bite kit, and have used it

.. hunting accidents begin the day before hunting season, i.e. cleaning the gun. (one guy w/ a muzzle loader shot a pencil through his leg)

.. rural roads.. you have a special harness so you can remain standing to do cpr and can't fall over

.. You have a medevac landing pad at the station

.. all of your apparatus is 4WD, has a stokes basket, ladder, SCBA and combo electric HURST tool on board; whackers envy you

[emtmoira]

-have ever had first responders tell you over the radio not to take a certain road because there was a bunch of moose on the road (yes this has happened to me!)

-have ever been to a car versus cow and told the patient that he should probably go to the hospital because he tucked and rolled out of his car and we couldn't find it (this happened to me too!)

-have ever gone to a moose versus car and stole some moose hair to put in the truck's fun call journal (someone else on my squad did this!)

-don't know any other way to start IVs but on the dirt road in the middle of winter or mud season (what some call spring)

-have ever had a random person with chains on their trucks pull your ambulance out of the ditch in the trailer park that your driver accidentally backed into resulting in the first responders starting to carry chains in their trucks "for next time"

-the local bar is considered the "other station"

[MedFire]

You know when you work in rural ems when u get a 3 page list of roads closed in winter the 3rd week in september. Plus giving direction on how to get to houses on those roads. ie: take a left into the johnson driveway ver to your right up busby hill it will be your 2nd house on your left.

this auctualy happens on our dept.

[grnresqjeep]

Blue jeans (or Carhartts) and your squads satin jackets are your dress uniform.

You are asked by the ED staff to please button up you shirt and not wear flipflops the next time you transport a PT.

Your dispatcher tells you to take a left at the dead skunk from last spring and a right at the old cadreact farm that burnt in 1980.

Your dispatcher tells the occupants of the local trailer park to activate their four way flashers on their home so emergency responders know which one it is.

[chipmunkemt_98]

Oh, my gosh, some of this is really true!!!

[emtmoira]

when there's a radio code for livestock in highway and animal carcass at..

when you know everyone that has a lightbar attached to their cars or trucks

when you've literally had to "turn off the dirt road" (Jeff Foxworthy reference) to get to a call

when you decided where to move based on which volunteer fire and rescue department you want to be part of because you NEED to respond from your house