Sendou
Forum Ride Along
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Sorry, been on Vaca. I would absolutely do it again, especially since I started when I was in HS. It taught me a lot of discipline (paramilitary) and gave me the jist of some public safety stuff. However, don't expect it to give you a lot of EMS experience. It's very different and although some of the skills are the same, you use them rarely and in a different manner and environment. The org. I volunteered for is unique in that we did a lot of suburban/urban area response for missing persons, assists to fire/police at major incidents/events, and lots of other odds and ends stuff. In addition to the traditional ground-pounding out in the backwoods, I acted as a bike medic at large community events, rehab at big fire scenes, etc. So I got a little more EMS than the average SAR... just a disclaimer.
SAR, and getting my EMT, allowed me to almost immediately get a job that didn't suck while I was in college. I was working in an OB-GYN clinic, doing something that was actually relevant to my major and making very good money compared to my friends making minimum wage in food service or something. I appreciated that a lot. I was by far the youngest in the clinic, in the PACU, and now in dispatch. I've definitely had a head-start...
It's become harder to be active in SAR as I've started working more, but I still like to swing by to help teach the EMS stuff when I can. The more you put in to SAR the more you'll get out of it... attend as many trainings as you can and get in shape for sure. It's also going to depend on the group.... when I was an Lt. I was putting in 100-200 hours a month for SAR, working part time and going to school full time (32 credit hours). The only thing that kept that from being an absolutely horrible experience was that my closest friends were on the SAR team.... and the realization that sleep is optional.
Sounds pretty awesome! I'm looking forward to it based on what I've read and heard about our local SAR org regardless of if any of it applies towards EMS to be honest. Probably a bit naive of me in thinking that any of the training or experience I receive translates into day to day life. I'm the type of person who likes to prepare and be prepared, even if the need for such skills never comes around. For now, I'll just continue enjoying my 8 hours of daily sleep while it lasts.
