Debating doing a 1 to 3 month deployment in alaska

bigbaldguy

Former medic seven years 911 service in houston
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Im thinking about doing a 3 month hitch in rural Alaska. Just wandering if and one has some experience in this area. I'm not terribly worried about pay I'm more interested in living conditions and quality of life. also I'm just a Basic so I know that factors in. I would even be willing to volley for a month or two in an interesting area. Any suggestion?
 

Anjel

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Im thinking about doing a 3 month hitch in rural Alaska. Just wandering if and one has some experience in this area. I'm not terribly worried about pay I'm more interested in living conditions and quality of life. also I'm just a Basic so I know that factors in. I would even be willing to volley for a month or two in an interesting area. Any suggestion?

Bring a parka, sleep mask, polar bear pepper spray, make sure whereever u go has internet.

And watch out for hawks eating small dogs.
 

guttruck

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well if you have no "attachments" around where you live I would do it. To me it seems like one of those once in a life time chances. Heck I would live up there if I could lol
 

lightsandsirens5

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And watch out for hawks eating small dogs.

Eagles, isn't it? :p

And bbg, I'd go for it if I were you! You don't have a family, right? I mean, maybe a month wouldn't be too bad if they paid really good. I got a friend who was hired by the USFS as a helibase medic for a month at a time during fire season up there once and he made freaking BANK! He was paid 24 hours a day, went on overtime at 40 hours and he was off something like 0600 Saturday morning through 0600 Monday morning. He would fly home for the weekend, spend it with his girlfriend, then fly back and go to work. I think they had three guys rotating through different days off. I would be way more than happy to go make USFS type money 120 hours a week. Especially if 80 of those hours were time 1.5. :-S

Every once and a while someone, somewhere lands a killer job. I will never be one of those people, but I like to dream of it. :p


Sent from a small, handheld electronic device that somehow manages to consume vast amounts of my time. Also know as a smart phone.
 

LoneStarSoldier

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Alaska is one of the most beautiful states in the country. I say go for it, you'll enjoy yourself and probably get some experience to add onto your resume.
 
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bigbaldguy

bigbaldguy

Former medic seven years 911 service in houston
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You know I half posted this as a joke but the more I look into it the more I like it. It all started with the arming EMTs in bear country thread then I started researching Alaska and next thing I knew I was checking availability on RV rentals. Maybe I'm having an early midlife crisis. I keep thinking "man I need to do something interesting with my life before I do something stupid like get married and miss my chance". I appreciate the support everyone I was really expecting to go down in flames on this idea.
 

Anjel

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You know I half posted this as a joke but the more I look into it the more I like it. It all started with the arming EMTs in bear country thread then I started researching Alaska and next thing I knew I was checking availability on RV rentals. Maybe I'm having an early midlife crisis. I keep thinking "man I need to do something interesting with my life before I do something stupid like get married and miss my chance". I appreciate the support everyone I was really expecting to go down in flames on this idea.

We got your back BBG!
 

Chief Complaint

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Alaska is killer, I'd go for it if I were you. Probably a bit unrealistic to be able to volunteer as an EMT if you're only gonna be there a few months, but maybe if you found a department in need of people they might be able to help you out.

If nothing else, take the trip for the sight seeing and awesome snowboarding.
 

firetender

Community Leader Emeritus
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"man I need to do something interesting with my life before I do something stupid like get married and miss my chance".

SOMEWHERE IN ALASKA

GRIZZLY #1

Now he did it, he'll never be able to squirm out of this one.

GRIZZLY #2

Be careful what you ask for.

GRIZZLY #1

Can I borrow your nail clippers?
 

EMS_Monkey

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Ive been looking at this. Id like to go to school up there. Where are you looking to get hired? FD, USFS, ect.
I think if you can make it happen you really should. Would be a wonderful opportunity
 

Shishkabob

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My moms side of the family lives there and I visit fairly often. Great state, especially if you like the outdoors.


Comfortable in the summer, cold in the winter.


It's odd to always have daylight during the summer, even at midnight.
 

AK_SAR

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Im thinking about doing a 3 month hitch in rural Alaska. Just wandering if and one has some experience in this area. I'm not terribly worried about pay I'm more interested in living conditions and quality of life. also I'm just a Basic so I know that factors in. I would even be willing to volley for a month or two in an interesting area. Any suggestion?

I don't think you will have much luck finding a short term paid EMT-B position. You might be able to find a smaller department that would let you work on a short term basis as a volunteer. See http://www.ems.alaska.gov/EMS/EMS_directory.htm for a list of departments. A word about levels of training. An EMT-B is called an "EMT-1" up here. An Alaskan EMT-2 would be an EMT-I anywhere else. See http://www.ems.alaska.gov/EMS/Levels.htm for more information.

Anchorage and a few of the larger communites have full time paid EMS staff, typically at the MICP level. Those paid spots are hard to get. Some of the smaller communites have a mix of paid and volunteer. In that case the paid staff are EMT-3 or MICP, and are often responsible for training the volunteers. The smallest communites are usually all volunteer, and are often tiny villages in remote locations. Many of the remote villages are largely Alaska Native people. The smaller all volunteer departments have a hard time maintaining enough people with higher levels of training. Some are First Responder only, some are BLS, some are BLS/ALS depending on who is available to handle the call. Except in the larger communities, long transport times and/or air evacuation are routine. Just the facts of life up here.

I'm not sure what generalizations I can make about "living conditions and quality of life". Alaska is a vast place, more than twice the land area of Texas. Because of the way the state is spread out (the SE Panhandle, the Alaska Penninsula and Aleutian Islands), it seems even bigger than the area alone would suggest. The lifestyle can be very different depending on where you are. Also (needless to say) there is a huge difference between winter and summer. In winter we have extremely cold and dry, cold and extremely wet.....and everthing in between.

People seem to either love Alaska and never leave, or they hate it and can't wait to get on the next plane out :)
 
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bigbaldguy

bigbaldguy

Former medic seven years 911 service in houston
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I don't think you will have much luck finding a short term paid EMT-B position. You might be able to find a smaller department that would let you work on a short term basis as a volunteer. See http://www.ems.alaska.gov/EMS/EMS_directory.htm for a list of departments. A word about levels of training. An EMT-B is called an "EMT-1" up here. An Alaskan EMT-2 would be an EMT-I anywhere else. See http://www.ems.alaska.gov/EMS/Levels.htm for more information.

Anchorage and a few of the larger communites have full time paid EMS staff, typically at the MICP level. Those paid spots are hard to get. Some of the smaller communites have a mix of paid and volunteer. In that case the paid staff are EMT-3 or MICP, and are often responsible for training the volunteers. The smallest communites are usually all volunteer, and are often tiny villages in remote locations. Many of the remote villages are largely Alaska Native people. The smaller all volunteer departments have a hard time maintaining enough people with higher levels of training. Some are First Responder only, some are BLS, some are BLS/ALS depending on who is available to handle the call. Except in the larger communities, long transport times and/or air evacuation are routine. Just the facts of life up here.

I'm not sure what generalizations I can make about "living conditions and quality of life". Alaska is a vast place, more than twice the land area of Texas. Because of the way the state is spread out (the SE Panhandle, the Alaska Penninsula and Aleutian Islands), it seems even bigger than the area alone would suggest. The lifestyle can be very different depending on where you are. Also (needless to say) there is a huge difference between winter and summer. In winter we have extremely cold and dry, cold and extremely wet.....and everthing in between.

People seem to either love Alaska and never leave, or they hate it and can't wait to get on the next plane out :)

Thanks for the info.I'm not really even looking at the paid idea anymore. I'm thinking at this point if I decide to do this I would rent an RV drive up for a summer and then basically if I can volley with a local outfit all the better. If I have to cruise around to find a little town that wants an extra and more importantly free set of hands that's cool too it will give me an excuse to wander a bit. Even if just turns into a road trip to visit as many rural EMS outfits as I can hit in a few months it might still be fun. Take some pictures shake some hands drink some beer get a few cool memories in kind of thing. Definitely not something I'm gonna be able to do this year though. The more I look into it the more I see that it's gonna take some planning and networking. I'm thinking summer of '13 EMS road trip, hell I might even get myself one of those fancy blogs :)
 

Handsome Robb

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Definitely blogworthy
 
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bigbaldguy

bigbaldguy

Former medic seven years 911 service in houston
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Nome sounds interesting and they have a volley EMS outfit there.
 

Handsome Robb

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Juneau is a cool place as well. My pops and I go fishing there every odd year except for this year cause of medic school...Summer of EMS '13 could coincide and create a reason for drinking beer and catching fish!
 

Aidey

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Nome sounds interesting and they have a volley EMS outfit there.

You should probably rethink the RV thing, you can't drive to Nome. ^_^
 
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