Age cap for municipal service Paramedic?

Hello everyone, I am a new member so forgive me if I am posting this in the wrong way/place. I am a 31 year old EMT student that will be done with EMT-B training on May 8, 2018 and will be sitting for the state of Illinois emt test shortly after. I also plan on attending paramedic school as soon as possible/gain acceptance. My question is, does the municipal services have an age cap for Paramedics? I don't really care about being a firefighter, I just want to be a paramedic. I fear that I will not be accepted because of how old I will be by the time I am done with medic school and licencing... Any thoughts or info is appreciated.

I've never heard of such a thing in a municipal EMS department.

RocketMedic said:

I've never heard of such a thing in a municipal EMS department.

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Concur.

Checking out a few examples (NYC, Boston, Austin, Wake, one of the Delaware counties) I don't see any...

Some civil service positions say you can't reach your 35th or 37th birthday. I've been told it has something to do with the pension system.

Best bet would be to call the agencies that you are interested in working for to see if they have any such requirement. As others have mentioned, there are plenty of agencies that don't.

In my searches on the internet, Illinois seems to be a state where you must be under the age of 35/34 (which I think is total BS). A lot of the answers are inconsistent and questionable, so I was a bit confused... I just hope I can get everything done and hired in time... Anyone have any experience with Illinois?

Instead of finding inconstant and questionable answers on the internet, why not get the answers you are looking for straight from the horse's mouth?

Your about my age, so I say this with as much respect as I can muster: why not make a few phone calls to EMS agencies in your state? Here, I will even provide you with a list of them, which can be found here

I also really want to run 911 calls after I graduate from medic school. Are municipal/civil services the only services that run 911 calls?

I appreciate you being respectful parasite. I am not looking for someone to make the phone calls for me, and I know that its the next step. I was just simply asking a question. I am new to EMS and saw this forum and thought it would be a good resource for information. I signed up and thought i'd ask... This is a forum about EMS, is it not?

chitowNAnthony said:

I also really want to run 911 calls after I graduate from medic school. Are municipal/civil services the only services that run 911 calls?

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http://dph.illinois.gov/topics-services/emergency-preparedness-response/ems/res_sysListing

https://superiorambulance.candidatecare.jobs/job_positions/browse?ILLINOIS

chitowNAnthony said:

I appreciate you being respectful parasite. I am not looking for someone to make the phone calls for me, and I know that its the next step. I was just simply asking a question. I am new to EMS and saw this forum and thought it would be a good resource for information. I signed up and thought i'd ask... This is a forum about EMS, is it not?

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I think you're unlikely to get an answer since it is a questiom that's specific to a pretty localized agency that isn't very well known. Like if it was Seattle Medic One or Wake County EMS, more people might have heard stuff about them. If it was a large company like American Medical Response, we could probably give you more info. For your question, this forum will likely not yield much results, if any. This forum will be straight for clinical question, discussing different equipment, sharing calls, things that aren't specific to an agency (unless it is one of the big ones).

DrParasite is right. It is kind of a waste to ask it here, but at least you tried, and maybe somebody might know the answer. This is one of the questions that is better to call around rather than ask here, though it doesn't mean you can't try to ask here. We'll be honest if we think it is unlikely to be answered here.

Sorry!

For who runs 911 (ambulance transport), it also can vary a lot, but it is often private companies (American Medical Response being the biggest here). Some fire departments do them on their own or rarely it will be a third service).

While you may want to get hired onto 911 right away, it can be sometimes difficult depending where you are. Where I am, 911 does 911 only and is all ALS. IFT (non emergency transport like nursing home to dialysis) is mostly BLS and does no 911 except in very rare circumstance. It took me a year to even a non emergency IFT job. I did IFT for 3.5 years, never got pulled into the 911 system even during MCIs (eg commercial airline crash), and then finally got onto 911 as an EMT. I feel like once you are on 911 where I am, you're probably not going to do IFT again. I became a medic a year later, and I've been doing that ever since. Anyways, you might 911 like I did, but it is potentially hard and can take a long time. It depends on your area, and if it isn't one of the popular ones, it'll be hard to get an answer here.

Thank you for the Info.

This all depends a lot in where you live. Here in Houston, HFD does 911 in parts of the metro, and in better parts, stand-alone EMS services do.

Simply put, if there is an "age cap" on how old/young one must be to start working in a municipal EMS agency, it will probably be driven by the agency's retirement system. I suspect that every system that has an age limit upon commencing employment will also have a mandatory retirement age, or at least a minimum retirement age. This is probably because it will take a certain amount of time for your retirement account to mature to a point where it will be basically self-sustaining while also providing you a reasonably decent retirement check. They then count backwards a certain number of years from that and you arrive at the age upon which you may commence service. Not all public retirement systems run like this. Some will simply have a minimum age to become vested in the system and also a minimum retirement age, and you must satisfy both in order to "retire" from public service and draw a pension. The last public job I had worked like that. While the minimum retirement age was 55, vesting occurred at 5 years. So if I started at age 52, I had to wait until I was 57 to retire because that's 5 years and older than 55. If I started at 46, I'd be vested at 51, but I'd still have to wait until I turned 55. The other way is basically vesting takes 20 years (or 25, or whatever) and then be at least 55 or 57 so then subtract that vesting age and you get your max age to begin service.

I know the military can get away with age caps, but in the civilian wired that sounds allot like discrimination of the age variety.

Uclabruin103 said:

I know the military can get away with age caps, but in the civilian wired that sounds allot like discrimination of the age variety.

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Not really when it's in regards to pension issues. I'm sure it's been taken up in court before and has been found to be legal. It wouldn't still be done otherwise.

luke_31 said:

Not really when it's in regards to pension issues. I'm sure it's been taken up in court before and has been found to be legal. It wouldn't still be done otherwise.

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We had some 40 year olds start in our pension system. Just means, for us, that they'll have to work into their late 60 to get a large percentage. Anyone have a link to one of these she capped systems?

Uclabruin103 said:

We had some 40 year olds start in our pension system. Just means, for us, that they'll have to work into their late 60 to get a large percentage. Anyone have a link to one of these she capped systems?

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I think probably the best example of the age cap not being discriminatory is the federal government for law enforcement and fire. If they can have a 37 age cap it must be legal seeing as how it's not been overturned yet and has been around for ages.