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

[redneck_emt_cop]

I never thought so much could be true! Our chief comes to late nite calls in his overalls...and if we're lucky a shirt. One of our members hit a deer with one of our trucks on her way back from the ED one night...then one of our other members went and cut its throat and took it home with her. However, I have found that there are some places worse than where I live. I never thought that could be true.

[StreetDoc2426]

You "MOOO" at cows in the pasture through the PA

You get a complaint called in on you for said Mooing

You stash fishing poles in the Main O2 compartment

You get a complaint called in on you for utilizing said fishing poles.

Your response/transport is delayed due to cattle crossing

You know all the Flight nurses, medics and pilots by name

Your patients addresses are always "PO Box ###" or "Route ###"

Every patient in thier 50's went to school with your parents.

Every Patient in thier 30's went to school with You

Every Pediatric patient goes to school with Your kids

You've burned an entire shift up on a Meth Lab stand-by (im in kentucky)

You've had to replace stock on the truck from Wal Mart

You've actually treated a person for injuries they sustained while trying to ride a deer.

[temsp40]

You don't think trailer truck when dispatched to a tractor trailer accident.

You often wonder if the hay baler would actually have packaged your patient.

You've ever been gun shopping while on duty

You know where the big oak on the corner of farmer Bob's field was.

You've been dispatched to the "Old (insert family name) House"

Most of the patients you transport can remember you when "you were this big"

[Dustdevil]

You "MOOO" at cows in the pasture through the PA.

Damn! I thought I was the only one who did that! I was the only one I knew doing it in the early 80's.

It works too! Them Holsteins will jump up out of a dead sleep for the electronic air horn and start mooing like a coyote howling at the moon!

[Alcomedicism]

you dont know where the 911 Address is located but if you call out the family name you pinpoint the exact location.

If your crew is a model for "Top 10 ways to die" by smoking a pack or two packs of cigarrettes a day, they are known to be grossly obese, one of them has just had yet another stint put in his heart, they also have interesting love relationships that could be Springer material. :shock:

-Alco

[Jeep_911]

.....have competitions as to how many cow's heads you can turn while driving by a field full of cows and "moooing" in the ambulance outside speaker system... :wink:

[winyan]

this, but all these things happen in NW NJ also. And we carry snakebite kits too!

win

[Burnzonemt]

You know its rural ems when:

Dispatcher: Rural First Response, please respond to an 80yr. old stroke pt. No address available. Someone will meet you

at the highway.

The first response apparently gets there ok after some guidance from one of the volunteer ff that lives in the area. ("You know this will be the trailer house five miles off the highway and in the next county.")

A short break and then:

Rural ambulance to Dispatch: Could you advise us of this location, we are on umpteenth road and can't find this location.

Dispatcher: We will send someone up to meet you at the highway on the next mile over from you.

Ambulance: Okay, but we will have to turn around and come back to the highway and then go one more mile to get to that

person's location.

Twenty minutes after responding from the station they advise they are on scene.

Gotta LOVE that rural ems!

Cardiac arrest gets a prayer and not much else!

P.S., Bonus points for getting the cows to stampede by alternating your siren enroute to a scene, although I will not admit to doing this

[Ghettomedic351]

I dont think anything beats having a trailer house for your station in the middle of a cow pasture on the company owners back forty. Good ole AET! Had to dodge cow patties to get to the unit for a call. Was Really Hell in 2000 when the ice storms hit central arkansas, we had to share sleeping bags to keep warm when we had no power, and cook our dinner with sterno. It was almost like camping out!!!

[DontFearTheReaper]

Come on guys, what's wrong with the fishing poles in the oxygen door??? The city cops can take you to all of the good spots where the fish are biting.