Long Distance

SwansonJohn99

SwansonJohn99

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Hey everyone. This is going to make a lot of you, especially those who work in rural areas or for companies that do these constantly, shake your heads in amazement.

I've been in EMS eight months and tomorrow is my first prescheduled long distance, or as I'm calling it, super long distance. You see I work in Milwaukee running BLS 911s and short local transports. The longest transports I've run to date are about an hour long. This one is projected to be about an 8 hour day so I'm going to say about a minimum of 3 hours of having the patient in our care. So I'm looking for EMSHacks, tips, and what to expect. So hit me up guys and gals!
 
Nothing really exciting. Talk to your patient, bring a book, have some music, but still watch your patient.

3 hour one way transports are pretty normal for us out here. The longest transport I have heard of for my area took about 26 hours round trip.
 
DesertMedic66 said:
Nothing really exciting. Talk to your patient, bring a book, have some music, but still watch your patient.

3 hour one way transports are pretty normal for us out here. The longest transport I have heard of for my area took about 26 hours round trip.
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Sounds like fun, thanks for the tip
 
SwansonJohn99 said:
Hey everyone. This is going to make a lot of you, especially those who work in rural areas or for companies that do these constantly, shake your heads in amazement.

I've been in EMS eight months and tomorrow is my first prescheduled long distance, or as I'm calling it, super long distance. You see I work in Milwaukee running BLS 911s and short local transports. The longest transports I've run to date are about an hour long. This one is projected to be about an 8 hour day so I'm going to say about a minimum of 3 hours of having the patient in our care. So I'm looking for EMSHacks, tips, and what to expect. So hit me up guys and gals!
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Expect boredom and a stiff back.
 
Do these every so often, often ends up being late at night. Just keep an eye on your patient, and like the others said bring a snack and entertainment.
 
ENJOY the break from the overrated craptastic 911 calls.

Also, FWIW, my service does them routinely multiple times a day. An 8 hour round trip isn't all too uncommon, 4-6 hour round trips are average, and 12-plus hours are also known to happen.

As a formerly active field supervisor in charge of assigning them while being stuck on a unit backfilling for the crews that were taken out of the system because of it, I'd never envied them so much. It definitely made me appreciate them that much more.

Edit: our BLS crews work their butts off running many of them now, allowing more ALS crews to remain in our system. That there exemplifies teamwork, and is worthy of a kudos.

@gonefishing, and @CodeBru1984 can vouch for this.
 
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SwansonJohn99 said:
Hey everyone. This is going to make a lot of you, especially those who work in rural areas or for companies that do these constantly, shake your heads in amazement.

I've been in EMS eight months and tomorrow is my first prescheduled long distance, or as I'm calling it, super long distance. You see I work in Milwaukee running BLS 911s and short local transports. The longest transports I've run to date are about an hour long. This one is projected to be about an 8 hour day so I'm going to say about a minimum of 3 hours of having the patient in our care. So I'm looking for EMSHacks, tips, and what to expect. So hit me up guys and gals!
Click to expand...
Longest transport I had was about 8 hours ONE way... made for quite a long day, and might I add, that was just the patient transport time. Total day ended up being around 18 hours. For that particular trip, I brought a portable DVD player and headphones for the patient along with a ton of DVDs. I also brought a book for me. I also was able to bring along our ProPaq to monitor vital signs. While the trip was basically 100% boring, I still watched the patient closely. One of the benefits of this LONG transport was that I was able to really get into the patient's chart and really delve into why and how the patient ended up with me on this transport. This also made for a very detailed, yet concise, patient care report. It was one of the few times I had to break out a continuation sheet just to be able to record all the vital sign sets that we were required to take...

Three hours of patient contact time truly isn't all that much, but if you're used to transports that are all less than 30 minutes, it'll seem like it takes forever! How would you travel with kids? Do the same things (kind of) and you'll do just fine.
 
Akulahawk said:
How would you travel with kids?
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Loved LD runs; where I work PT every transport is at least 2 hours one way to the ED. Sometimes 2-3 hours longer depending where the patient is.
 
Where I used to work, it hit the point they stopped asking me if I would go out of town. They would just text me with the address and crew for the ones I was going on the next day.
22 hours one way twice in a month was my best.
 
It never seems to work out well for me. When i take them, the other crews do nothing all day. When i decline, i run my butt off all day.

Overall, I hate driving and I hate long car rides; so long transports dont blow my skirt up anymore. Back in the day, when it was pretty much a guarantee that you'd either do 15 calls or one out of state, I took the out of state calls every time.
 
Strong dislike for LDTs from me. Most days I start an AMR shift I look at the supe all angry like "do not under any circumstances send me to Denver. Or anywhere else." My regular job averages 45 minute transports and twice that is common. I don't need any more of those.

Make sure you have a plan for keeping whoever is driving awake.
 
DesertMedic66 said:
Nothing really exciting. Talk to your patient, bring a book, have some music, but still watch your patient.

3 hour one way transports are pretty normal for us out here. The longest transport I have heard of for my area took about 26 hours round trip.
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how in the world are you doing a 26 hour round trip. from where to where?
 
EMT9396 said:
how in the world are you doing a 26 hour round trip. from where to where?
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It was a trip from SoCal to deep in NV somewhere (I was not on the call but saw the information and talked to the crew who did it).

The transport was set up a week in advance. It was a BLS call and the BLS crew was given a type 3 ambulance. We had a 3 member crew so they could rotate positions: one doing patient care, one driving, and the last one sleeping.

The crew was given a company credit card to buy food and drinks for themselves and for the patient.
 
I've done a couple of those in my time!! Do your job and care for the patient. The blessing will come at the end when you get to your destination and you find a nice place to eat and relax for a bit. Your company might even get you a hotel!!!
 
Sit back and relax, but don't get complacent with monitoring your pt. It would be super uncomfortable to realize you're pt is DOA as you're pulling into your destination.
 
S911S said:
Sit back and relax, but don't get complacent with monitoring your pt. It would be super uncomfortable to realize you're pt is DOA as you're pulling into your destination.
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Long distance BLS transports aren't for critical pts, the probability of something going wrong is usually very low. Nonetheless, complacency isn't an option. More of a situational awareness thing.


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