1st Day Driving an Ambulance

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anand

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I started my first EMS job. It's mostly patient transfer (non-emergent). This was my first day driving on the job.

Somehow managed to activate the emergency lights without realizing and drove for about 3 minutes until I realized I had them on... it was quite something. Obviously, I promptly turned them off once I realized.

I was so completely embarrassed once I finally figured it out. Since there were no cars in front of me, there was no one who had to yield (except one car that went into the left lane). I was driving 25 in a 30 the entire time in the right lane. There was really no way of knowing I had them on until I finally realized everyone was staring at the ambulance, red lights were reflecting off the signs, and no one was passing me even though I was going under the speed limit.

Anyone else have funny "accidentally had lights on" stories?
 
not lights related but my rig was wired weird so if the sirens are in the “hand free” position ( like you honk horn to turn them on) and you press the lock button they will go off.
Went to a an ER and was walking into ambulance bay with patient. Went to lock the Ambulance and the sirens start blaring while fire and all the other crews just stared at me like I was letting go on purpose haha
 
After 4 calls in a row over several hours my partner and I were hungry. I stopped at a local hot dog shop on the way back to get
some hot wieners to bring back to the station. I parked about a quarter of a block away. I locked the truck with the remote and we
went in. When we were walking back with our food, I thought I hit the unlock button, but I had the fob upside down so I hit "Panic."
Yep, the siren and lights went off. After hitting unlock twice it stopped. A few cars looked at us. Yes I was embarrassed.

On what was written in another post about the siren going off on its own, yes that has happened. The siren also
did go off when we locked the ambulance at the ambulance bay at the hospital. The only good thing was when the
lock button was activated on the fob, it scared off
someone who was going to try to get in the ambulance after we left to bring the patient inside.
My agency has Whelen sirens. I discovered if you leave it in the "Man 1" position, the siren no longer
self activates any more.
 
If you think that's bad, try driving from the scene to the hospital with the parking brake on. no one will see it, but they will know from the smell
 
In the short year I've been on the job, I have forgotten to turn off the emergency lights after backing multiple times and forgotten to kill the scene lights multiple times. I've found that more people pull over for the scene lights than the emergency lights
 
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