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

[rat115]

When your boss lets you take off the job for a call and continues paying you while you work your "other" job.

When everyone in the area knows that if a vehicle has it's hazard lights going they need to get out of the way and all of the out of towners look at you wierd and you just laugh.

[MedicNorth]

You know you're in rural ems when people call you directly at home instead of going through 911.

When the address is "the old Johnson place" and Johnson has been dead for 30 years.

[Ridryder 911]

Awww. old man Johnson died.?..... maybe that is why I haven't seen him in a while ...lol

R/R 911

[bandaidpatrol]

You know you're in rural ems when people call you directly at home instead of going through 911.

I hate when people do that.. They don't want their name to go over the air, so they call me directly. I haven't owned the ambulance service in 23 years, and people still ask if the funeral home provided ambulance service. "Not legally".

[GEMSEMT]

If you've ever been called for an ATV rollover and needed another ATV to get to them.

If you've ever been called for a Motorcycle versus cow and had the dispatcher call you asking for hamburger when its over.

If the Fire Chief responds to the station on his tractor (Mine used to).

If the police call your unit out for your TIC to locate a person who has fled on foot from a scene.

[resqmdc14]

...when you go to the home of an elderly man that was trimming a tree: had a limb fall and hit him on the head, but wants you there in case the kerosene he poured on the three inch long gash to clean it catches on fire when he tries to light a cigarette

(swear to God this really happened)

[hfdff422]

100% true story here.

We get a call at 22:00 on Christmas eve of all nights. It has rained for 3 days straight, it is foggy, drizzly, nasty, 42 degrees. The call is a suicidal person who has overosed on Atenolol (I believe, I'm just a dumb ol' , We are standing by with our ambulance and engine, along with a medic waiting for an all clear from law enforcement when they call us up for "lighting". Seems this guy has "run off into the field" across from their house and is hiding from the deputies in the "tree line". He is talking with them on his cell and telling them he "does not know where he is now and is having a hard time moving". So, in true rural fashion, we call our 4x4 grass rig and go muddiing through about 2 square miles of divided fields with a TIC, four EMT's and two deputies on the back bumper hanging on like old time tail board riders. In addition to that, they call a local hunter/ reserve officer in, two DNR conservation officers with 4wd Expeditions, another FD's Gator, a few other vollies in their POV 4x4's and quads, and there are two shifts worth of deputies there with two dogs- one deputy for the rest of the county is left! After about 2 hours of searching with dogs, TIC's and massive amounts of manpower and simply tearing four fields to shreds- the a**hole is hiding in his closet in his house and never OD'd on anything- except a six pack! Everyone is covered in mud and he just could not fathom why we were upset and why he was going to jail.

That is rural EMS at its best

[tenranchchick]

So rural EMS? I am working on an Indian reservation, pretty new to it, spent my EMS career thus far in the big cities- so we get a call about 2 in the am to this elderly lady who was intoxicated (pretty common around here) and had gotten up to use the bathroom and slipped and broke her wrist- she slipped in cow s%@! from the cow she KEEPS IN THE HOUSE- on purpose. who knew?!

[sturz]

You know you are out in the country when they refer to you as frontier. Or the Ranchers ask who is working on a certain date because they know where their pastures are and where their corals are.

[Defiant1]

you know you are out in the country when you respond to a farm for a male who has fallen about 10 ft but is still concious and is alert & oriented. and in the back of the rig, the patient ACTUALLY says "hey, i got a knife in my pocket if you guys need it" while the EMT's are cutting his pants.