Voluntary Services

[SSG G-man]

I am a volunteer, but my full time occupation is Soldier in the U.S. Army. HOOAH!!!

[jimwall63]

in my county we have all types of volunteer,mostly BLS but we have a lot of intermediates.when they dispatch 911 we get the same calls as the paid county.we have the same authority as the county EMS in transporting as far as our level provides.

Most of the time we are the first on the scene and then we call the paramedic truck to advise if the should proceed or we will handle it.All in all we work hand in hand with the paid EMS workers and gives us a better system of care.

parkton volunteer 8)

EMT-Intermediate

[SSG G-man]

Hey, Jimwall, I am Army National Guard AGR! Work at NGB. Hooah!

[ffemtdrew14]

Here in Western Pennsylvania is a mix of volunteer, and paid (BLS and ALS). The bigger the community the more likely the EMS is paid and usually owned by a private company or the hospital in town, majority of the vol. ambulances are owned/operated by the vol. fire dept., though many now have paid crews during the daylight hours.

[Myrna]

My area is Paid call other towns are paid on a point system. Most First Responders/Basics/EMT-I's are all vollie, there is one service that is paid all the time and they fill in as back up to the towns and or are the towns transporting system while the local EMS stabilize and package. Then there is a vollie event squad that allot of the EMS personal are on.

If you work on a full time squad alot of it is interfacility and or wheel chair van based. I feel that vollie is ok, but I think you get a mixed bag of people. Some are really good at helping the squads and putting in their due time whilst others are very laxidasical at best, and well, It puts a strain on the rest of the crew who have to pull the extra shifts as to avoid missing critical coverage.

The other issue with vollie is since we get so few calls we are based out of our houses and have to respond from those houses to the station and then the station to location. Some of the people can be as much as 10-12 min out from the time the tone goes off til the time you get to the station. Creating a re-tone and possible dispatch of that coverage company.

I am not saying that vollie is bad. I am saying that it can change the outcome of the call. We do train our Police to use CPR and De-fib, and most know how to deal with severe bleeding, I know this as I have been on the receiving end of a nice police officer comming to my house when I sliced myself open and he volunteered to help hold the wound shut as my hand was getting tired till the EMT's got there. This was before I became an EMT.

I think the US needs to take another look at its services, Its people, and wake up to realize we really do need all paid services. I will never be able to count the number of hours I was "ON CALL" could not go anywhere do anything just incase, My family will never get back the lost family get togethers that we had to miss as I was on call. I loved my 72 hour shifts. I loved my rig, and I had some good squad mates, but in the end I had to drop it as it was just too much.

I am still on a squad, I tried the Wheel Chair Van thing, not my cup of tea. One day I will be full time. Maybe it will take me getting my Medics but I will do it.

[itku2er]

I live in a ruaral area we have both paid and volly services for rescue squads

All our Fire Dept are volly unless it is a forest fire then we get paid by the forestry dept.

[bandaidpatrol]

Paid by Forestry? Do you also get Twenty-Seven cents an hour for carting a 25lb galvanized steel tank around on your back? I recall a forest fire a little over 20 years ago, train started it along the Kinzua viaduct. Thirteen hours fighting that blaze, I had purple marks on my shoulders from that tank. I guess it's called an "Indian Tank"? My check was for $3.51. 13 Hours x 27 cents. :roll:

While I had very little time to do any volunteering, I am a "life member" of the local fire dept. I think that's an honorary title, as I send them a check for $500.00 every year. But I used to have a radio, and respond to fires. In fact I probably still have it. Nothing like the tiny minitor pagers they have now, this thing had a shoulder strap, a 6' antenna, and weighed 6 pounds. I believe it was called a "Plectron". Made a loud, annoying, high-pitched warble when the tones went off?

Locally, I guess EMS was paid, because we paid our drivers and attendants that drove ambulance for the funeral home. But we did have some volunteer EMT's from the fire dept. who rode along on cardiac arrests and when taking in automobile accident victims. It went back to them in 83, they are all volunteer, as far as I know.

[MedicNorth]

As a small town, we have a completely volunteer fire dept, which operates a medical co-respose team. This is a group of unpaid EMRs and EMTAs who respond to local calls until the ALS sevice from another town can arrive. This is important because the wait time for ALS can be up to 35 minutes. We respond from home / work, but usual page-to-enroute times are less than 4 minutes, as the majority of us live within 6 blocks of the station.

The ALS service we work with is all paid.