# AMR's DRT



## Rin (Aug 8, 2014)

I've been looking around, trying to line up some future career goals and thought the DRT sounded interesting.  I know it's only open to AMR employees, but are there further requirements?

Do you have to be with the company for a certain amount of time?  
Suck up to certain supervisors?  
Be employed at a certain division or station?  
Have certain certs?  
How competitive is it to get a spot?

Then once you get on and are deployed, how does it work?
Do you drive a squad in?  Fly over and use local equipment?
I saw someone say they basically lived out of their squad.  How do they handle sanitation, hygiene, decon?


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## DesertMedic66 (Aug 8, 2014)

The DRT changed names to ERT (Emergency Response Team). AMR sub-contracts out to other ambulance companies across the nation to help supply employees and equipment.

For my area you have to be employeed by the company for 1 year before you are able to be on the team. 

You may have to suck up to supervisors (depends on your division). We do monthly rotations of crew members. When it's my month on the list I have to have my 72 hour go bag all ready. 

Some divisions do not have the ERT (no clue why not). 

Mandatory certs are the FEMA/ICS/NIMS 100, 200, 700, and 800. Also hazmat awareness, EVOC and possibly some other ones (I'll have to look up the exact list again). For my area all of these certs are required to have to work for AMR at all. 

Once again it depends on your division on how hard it is to get a spot. There were only ~4 members on our DRT/ERT. Once people found out I was deployed to hurricane Sandy we have had a lot more people sign up. 

Once you are deployed it depends on where the incident is as to how you will respond. You may drive ambulances to the incident site or you may fly to AMR storage warehouse and pick up dedicated DRT/ERT ambulances. They are all stocked will a ton of equipment. Some gear may be new while others may be pretty old. My unit had a LP10 as our monitor. 

Normally for the first couple of days you will sleep in the ambulance, drink packaged water, and eat MREs. You you have to stop anywhere you can to use the restroom. You may not be able to take a shower for a decent amount of time so the clean wipes are your friend. As soon as a FOB is set up they will work on getting showers, laundry, bathrooms, and food all set up but it takes a little while. 

If you are a kind of person who needs to take a shower everyday, expects to sleep on a nice bed, and eat nice hot meal do not join the team. You will have to rough it on deployment.


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## DesertMedic66 (Aug 8, 2014)

Here is a thread I posted about my experience for hurricane Sandy: www.emtlife.com/showthread.php?t=32943&highlight=Sandy

My experience on the deployment was not a typical one due to the fact I was placed on the Incident Management Team (IMT).

Here are the minimum requirements for EMTs: http://www.amr.net/Files/PDFs/ERT-Internal/DRT-EMT-Basic


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## Rin (Aug 8, 2014)

Thanks for the reply.  I read the post & requirements you linked and it sounds really interesting.  I'm an oddball in that I enjoy working in bad weather &  conditions, though the lack of showers might drive me crazy.  I can picture myself shaving my head around day 5 lol.  Sleeping rough, bad food, and port-a-potties don't bother me as long as I don't have to tcb with an audience.

Was there anything you wish you'd packed?
How did they deal with fatigue, especially in those first 96 hours?


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## DesertMedic66 (Aug 8, 2014)

Rin said:


> Thanks for the reply.  I read the post & requirements you linked and it sounds really interesting.  I'm an oddball in that I enjoy working in bad weather &  conditions, though the lack of showers might drive me crazy.  I can picture myself shaving my head around day 5 lol.  Sleeping rough, bad food, and port-a-potties don't bother me as long as I don't have to tcb with an audience.
> 
> Was there anything you wish you'd packed?
> How did they deal with fatigue, especially in those first 96 hours?



Warmer cloths haha. I'm a Southern California guy born and raised so I'm not used to cold weather like we had in New York. 

The first 96 hours was living hell. They will try to rotate crews so that you are able to sleep but it's not always possible. In the first 96 hours my crew got maybe 2-3 hours combined sleep. We just got done running several missions and just laid down to sleep. About 30 minutes to an hour later we had the IMT open our unit doors and told us that we were being moved up to the IMT and that our 12 hour shift started immediately. 

After the first couple of days everything was sorted out and crews were able to get sleep and go to stores for medications and additional personnel items that we didn't have on hand at our FOB.


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## Rin (Aug 8, 2014)

Were you running two-man per squad?
And just out of curiosity, were there any women?


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## DesertMedic66 (Aug 8, 2014)

Rin said:


> Were you running two-man per squad?
> And just out of curiosity, were there any women?



Most were 2 man squads. Mine was a 3 man squad because our strike team leader was with us. 

There were a good number of females who were there. A couple of the units were dual female units. Out of the 26 people who responded from my area there were around 3-5 females. 

From what I heard we actually sent home a crew who were caught doing sexual activities.


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## Rin (Aug 8, 2014)

Ack


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## Rin (Aug 8, 2014)

DesertEMT66 said:


> From what I heard we actually sent home a crew who were caught doing sexual activities.



My thoughts on this:
1.		
2.		Hygiene
3.		Privacy
4.		On the clock
5.		Who caught them & told?


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## MonkeyArrow (Aug 8, 2014)

DesertEMT66 said:


> From what I heard we actually sent home a crew who were caught doing sexual activities.



What's wrong with a little fun? As long as you do it off the clock, why does it matter? This isn't a high school field trip...

(about half a real question, half sarcasm)


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## DesertMedic66 (Aug 8, 2014)

MonkeyArrow said:


> What's wrong with a little fun? As long as you do it off the clock, why does it matter? This isn't a high school field trip...
> 
> (about half a real question, half sarcasm)



During deployment you are on the clock and getting paid 24/7 with no days off


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## Ewok Jerky (Aug 9, 2014)

DRT is a great way to make some great cash, and as long as you don't mind roughing it, some great times as well.

In my division you definitely wanted to be on the strike team leader's good side if you wanted primary spot on a deployment. In my bag, in addition to the normal stuff, I kept batteries (AA, AAA, flashlight, watch), phone charger, motrin and h2 blockers, water tabs, some water flavor stuff too, 2 nalgenes a roll of tp, gold bond, sunblock, ChapStick, cards, instant coffee and a bag of quarters.  Not much but enough to get you through the first 4 days of an incident until a base gets set up.  I an prepared to throw away every thing including the uniforms away upon demobilization.

We would usually get an informal notification 24-36 hours before and generate a list of available peeps. When the call comes in we have 12 hours to report to quarters.  We take a van or two to the airport and fly somewhere to join other strike teams and to get our ambulances.  Then we convoy to the incident.  It's chaotic at first.  You will likely stay with your team but can get broken into other task forces if necessary.  After a few days a base gets set up and things get a little more organized.  After 2 weeks you can go home and be replaced or stay.

It's true you get payed from mobilization in home county to demobilization, but you are making FEMA wages not your home operation wage, but it is still a mighty pay check.  Meals are covered by FEMA (when you get them), you might sleep in your rig or you might sleep in a Marriott, you might east at Outback or you might eat MREs, like I said the first few days are chaotic.

Oh and there are also state and local contracts we respond to.


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## Rin (Aug 9, 2014)

I'm surprised you don't at least pack some protein bars or something if meals are so irregular.  Also, spare uniforms? At least underwear & socks.  Are your uniforms in such bad condition by demobilization that they can't come clean in the wash?

I'm curious about the pay rate now.  Is it hourly? Daily? I'm assuming no overtime.  And it's less than your regular hourly rate?  I'd love to know more by PM or whatever.  This is all so interesting.


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## DesertMedic66 (Aug 9, 2014)

Rin said:


> I'm surprised you don't at least pack some protein bars or something if meals are so irregular.  Also, spare uniforms? At least underwear & socks.  Are your uniforms in such bad condition by demobilization that they can't come clean in the wash?
> 
> I'm curious about the pay rate now.  Is it hourly? Daily? I'm assuming no overtime.  And it's less than your regular hourly rate?  I'd love to know more by PM or whatever.  This is all so interesting.



It's hourly. After 40 hours a week you get OT (your on the clock 24/7). For myself the pay for an EMT was around $16.33/hr base.


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## TransportJockey (Aug 10, 2014)

You also can get deployed to otehr operations as part of DRT. I did that and was up in NH/ME for about 2 months helping out up there. Not as much pay as FEMA deployments (local or home wage, whichever is higher) but there are tons of hours to work and it's fun to get extra (per diem) money and free vehicles and gas to go check out the local stuff ( we went to Boston a lot)


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## DrParasite (Aug 10, 2014)

DesertEMT66 said:


> From what I heard we actually sent home a crew who were caught doing sexual activities.


I can think of worse ways to stay warms, esp on those cold new york nights.


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## exodus (Aug 10, 2014)

Rin said:


> I'm surprised you don't at least pack some protein bars or something if meals are so irregular.  Also, spare uniforms? At least underwear & socks.  Are your uniforms in such bad condition by demobilization that they can't come clean in the wash?
> 
> I'm curious about the pay rate now.  Is it hourly? Daily? I'm assuming no overtime.  And it's less than your regular hourly rate?  I'd love to know more by PM or whatever.  This is all so interesting.



24/7 deployment time at the current FEMA payrate. And they will always have food for you, may not be any good, but there will be food at least. Probably MRE's for a while.

Also, do you work for EMSC or a subsidiary? AFAIK, primary ERT's are EMSC companies only and you can't get on as *just* an ERT member.


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## Rin (Aug 10, 2014)

I work at an outside company. The closest AMR is over an hour from me, so I'm trying to decide if having to regularly make the commute is worth it for a chance to get on the ERT.


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## DesertMedic66 (Aug 10, 2014)

Rin said:


> I work at an outside company. The closest AMR is over an hour from me, so I'm trying to decide if having to regularly make the commute is worth it for a chance to get on the ERT.



How often you get deployed depends on the operation and how often there are incidents. Since 2007 there have only been about 6 national deployments.


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## SandpitMedic (Aug 10, 2014)

It is hurricane season, after all.

I have been on the team during two separate stents while working at Envision (formerly EMSC) companies. 

Total about 3 years. Never been deployed. I got called up on standby once for Sandy, but we got cancelled. From that one time I remember that only about of the quarter of the members of the team agreed to deploy, as it is not mandatory. Do everyone a favor and if you aren't serious about it don't bother signing up. 

Just depends. 

Either way.... You should pack the list of items they tell you to as well as some other common sense items or things you just can't live without. 

Extra clothing, and baby wipes I've heard are hot commodities.  

You have to work for an Envision company to join the team.


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## Ewok Jerky (Aug 10, 2014)

Rin said:


> I work at an outside company. The closest AMR is over an hour from me, so I'm trying to decide if having to regularly make the commute is worth it for a chance to get on the ERT.


No. Just working for amr does not guarantee a chance to be on a DRT. Being on a DRT does not guarantee a deployment.


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## Rin (Aug 11, 2014)

My current commute is almost an hour, so it wouldn't kill me to drive a little further.  Thanks all for filling in some details for me.


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## DesertMedic66 (Aug 11, 2014)

Rin said:


> My current commute is almost an hour, so it wouldn't kill me to drive a little further.  Thanks all for filling in some details for me.



Let us know if you have any other questions


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## DesertMedic66 (Aug 15, 2014)

Just some numbers incase you are interested.

There are currently 1,781 active DRT/ERT members and 42 inactive members.


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## DeepFreeze (Aug 16, 2014)

DesertEMT66 said:


> During deployment you are on the clock and getting paid 24/7 with no days off


Wasn't there also an issue with the partying during Katrina/Rita? I remember hearing a something about that, and the argument of "Off Duty"/"deployment" came into affect.

One of the benefits of being deployed, again because AMR DRT is being used by the gov't (correct me if I'm wrong), is that you are paid "Portal to Portal". So that the minute you are activated, to the minute you are back home...you are getting paid,hence always on the clock.

Depending on your certification level, another way to do deployments (and better organized) is to do it with a FEMA Task Force. I know friends who went into AMR's DRT (they didn't work for AMR) and guys who went to the same location with FEMA. FEMA's people were way better fed and better equipped and better taken care of in general. I know in New England, Paramedic and higher are needed on the FEMA team

 My same friend who was on the AMR team had to steal MRE's due to poor planning. Plus he was on the Katrina deployment, was halfway back home and they sent him back out again to RITA.  A couple other stories he had convinced me not to apply.

But I guess you could say that about any disaster deployment.


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## Rin (Aug 16, 2014)

I wonder if the 'no fraternization' policy is still in effect if they put you up in a hotel (vs. being in squads/tents).  Sounds kind of hard to enforce, unless they purposefully split up the men & women.  Do they just room you with whoever your partner is or assign a random roommate?  Something about that could be a bit more awkward when you're not roughing it.


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## TransportJockey (Aug 16, 2014)

Rin said:


> I wonder if the 'no fraternization' policy is still in effect if they put you up in a hotel (vs. being in squads/tents).  Sounds kind of hard to enforce, unless they purposefully split up the men & women.  Do they just room you with whoever your partner is or assign a random roommate?  Something about that could be a bit more awkward when you're not roughing it.


I know when I did my personnel shortage deployment I was with a random guy in a hotel room. Didn't stop any of us from spending nights in female rooms. 
On deployment for.Isaac I was primarily in the ambulance with my female partner who happened to be my boss.back home


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## Jon (Aug 19, 2014)

DRT can be fun, but you've got to be able/willing to be flexible and make do with very little in the way of creature comforts.



Someone mentioned partying during Katrina.

I was in Louisiana for about 3 weeks with DRT... If there was partying, I didn't know about it.


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