Down time-Station or Home?

[EMT857]

My township is still all volunteer Fire and EMS (separate agencies) with a population of approx. 40,000. There are two separate squads for each side of town, combined about 3,600 (split pretty evenly) calls a year. Each has 3 rigs plus a first responder truck.

Generally an EMS duty crew is always signed up in advance and can respond from home and second assignment crews are usually who ever is available or bounces to the other squad. There have been times 6-7 calls in town have been going and we've run out of rigs.

As for Fire, 3 companies, all on the 24/7 who ever is around responds and for working fire mutual aid is called. But they still have the potential for 6-7 days with out any calls.

[butterfly]

i live in a kinda small area and we only have one paid day mon- friday crew that consists of a paramedic and a driver. all the rest of the time it is vollies, and you have to stay at the building to pull your shift and they are every 6th day. there is also a time where no one is at the building and if we get a call at that time its who ever shows up at the building to take it.

[emsopsmgr205549]

I would say that 5 minutes is a rather significant window of time. Typically in the Operations that I have worked, 911 response requires and out of chute time of 90 seconds at night, 60 seconds during the day.

I can't imagine having 5 minutes to go enroute to a call......

[spenac]

I would say that 5 minutes is a rather significant window of time. Typically in the Operations that I have worked, 911 response requires and out of chute time of 90 seconds at night, 60 seconds during the day.

I can't imagine having 5 minutes to go enroute to a call......

Its all about saving the mighty dollar not the patient. Many citys/countys choose this method so they can short staff ambulances, not pay you for all hours on duty. They also understand that 90%+ of the time 5 minutes, hell an hour will do no harm so they are willing to take those odds. The only way changes come are when one of their family members suffers because of it.

[emsopsmgr205549]

I completely understand the theory beyon it. Doesn't make it right though. Having been in management as long as I have, I've been witness to the negative effects. Inevitably, it always catches up with the service(s) at some point.

[spenac]

I completely understand the theory beyon it. Doesn't make it right though. Having been in management as long as I have, I've been witness to the negative effects. Inevitably, it always catches up with the service(s) at some point.

I agree fully. sadly until someone important dies because of it no changes will come. I'm not important but if any of my family gets sick and suffers because of it my lawyer will have a field day. I really do not understand how no one has sued the city yet.

[iMac]

All 3 services I have worked for, have all been rural services and for all of them we could respond from home (hospital when I worked in Emerg when I was on call). I loved it actually. We just drove out to the station and picked the unit or we took the unit home and responded from home.

[Don1977]

I live 20 minutes from home, so nope cant go home for down time, that would be bad anyway, cause once im home, im not leaving....lol

[CaEMT33]

Some of you are talking about having 5 minutes to be en route to your call, wow!!! I can't believe that. In the area I work we have 90 seconds to be in the unti and pulling out of the garage. Depending on where we are responding we have response times that we have to meet or get fined. Our immediate area requires us to respond and be on scene within 7 minutes. This time constraint of course gets extended based on the distance from our station. Some of our calls for service take us up to one and a half hours from our district and thus response time means as soon as you can get there. We run 24 hour shifts and at night we wear jumpsuits and zip up boots to expidite the response process. 5 minutes to get moving, still can't believe it.

[JakeEMTP]

Some of you are talking about having 5 minutes to be en route to your call, wow!!! I can't believe that. In the area I work we have 90 seconds to be in the unit and pulling out of the garage.

We have the same " out of the shoot " time here. Although if we miss it, they don't fine us. 5 min to be en route is rediculous. In fact, it would be laughable if not so tragic. The simple answer is, if you want to pull call, be at the station. Sorry if it inconveniences you. The first word in EMS is emergency. If it takes you 5 min. to respond to the station, then to the call, well, I guess it's not an emergency after all. The code is over, just bring the monitor in.