Paramedic Openings in Tulare County

Jim37F said:
Dafuq?? How on earth do you run any calls as a single man engine??
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PCF's

Edit: Which is useless because you can't go interior on a fire because of the 2 in 2 out rule. It makes no sense, where I was the Tulare county fire station was only sometimes staffed. The captain would only work like 8 hour or 12 hour shifts on certain days of the week. Which I understand since its rural as hell, but when the station is supplemented by 1 PCF that may or may not respond then sometimes TCFD won't even respond to their own calls in their own area. In Tulare county CAL FIRE covers the SRA (state response area), the Feds cover the FRA (federal response area), county covers LRA (local response area), and the city depts cover the cities. 100% of the calls in my area we would respond mutual aid for TCFD. The vegetation fire that we IA'd (initial attack) it was us (4 man engine, 1 capt. 3 ff's) and TCFD which the capt. was on a 24 surprisingly. 5 people for a visitation fire with a moderate rate of spread. Oh and the next in engine was 45 minutes out. 5 acres total with 1 building lost. That fire could've been 5 acres with no loss of property had the county staffed engines with at least one more paid person.
 
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Jim37F said:
Dafuq?? How on earth do you run any calls as a single man engine??
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Welcome to the Central Valley, Jimbo:). KCFD at minimum does have 2 man engines, but they're a full time career department, and we're talking about some tiny townships that hardly notice when the engine is out, and/ or moved up to cover or back fill another areas engine out on drills or training. Tulare Co. though? Whole different ballgame re: their "county" fire department.
 
Jim37F said:
Dafuq?? How on earth do you run any calls as a single man engine??
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It's a different world outside of LA County. You don't need 8 fireman and 2 emts and 2 paramedics for back pain [emoji23]
When you get out into those little rural towns like the great Vent said, you hardly notice the fire department moves. I do know one of the houses in Tulare only had a 3 man crew. Got a tshirt from them a while back. I wanderd over to chit chat while I was at a wake which happened to be next door. Very humble down to earth people. It was a great change from some of big city fires personalities.

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gonefishing said:
It's a different world outside of LA County. You don't need 8 fireman and 2 emts and 2 paramedics for back pain [emoji23]
When you get out into those little rural towns like the great Vent said, you hardly notice the fire department moves. I do know one of the houses in Tulare only had a 3 man crew. Got a tshirt from them a while back. I wanderd over to chit chat while I was at a wake which happened to be next door. Very humble down to earth people. It was a great change from some of big city fires personalities.

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The calls go so much smoother when there are not too many people on scene. For instance, Porterville sends a 2 person BLS staffed patrol to most medical calls. The two firefighters and two people on the ambulance are more than enough for probably 95% of all calls. If the call comes out as a cardiac arrest, MVA, or something like that, then the engine responds automatically. The other interesting thing about that is there is no captain on the patrol so the medic clearly has scene control and there is no confusion about that. All the firefighters I work with are completely down to earth, helpful, and are on a first name basis with us.
 
CentralCalEMT said:
Porterville
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I liked the guys from Porterville city. We finished out our new hire academy at their training facility. They were nice enough to let us use it.
 
I applied to Visalia fire once on the down low. I never actually made it to the in person interviews though. My "maybe-be-an-engine-paramedic" idea had all but fizzled out by then.
 
VentMonkey said:
I applied to Visalia fire once on the down low. I never actually made it to the in person interviews though. My "maybe-be-an-engine-paramedic" idea had all but fizzled out by then.
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You're better as a guardian angel. Good to know if somebodys butts in a bind they can call upon you to float down from the heavens and swoop them away. [emoji16]

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gonefishing said:
You're better as a guardian angel. Good to know if somebodys butts in a bind they can call upon you to float down from the heavens and swoop them away. [emoji16]
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Bro, really??? C'maaan???!!!o_O
 
gonefishing said:
Hey, gotta keep your ego high like the elevations
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Anything I find worth bragging about is hardly within the confines of my job description:).

Back to Tulare Co. related topics:

@CentralCalEMT what can you tell us about the systems dispatch itself? I was (once) told that the companies rotate 911 calls. Is this in fact, or was it ever true?
 
gonefishing said:
It's a different world outside of LA County. You don't need 8 fireman and 2 emts and 2 paramedics for back pain
emoji23.png
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I'm actually not too worried about that where half of those end up standing in the back once everyone is on scene
emoji23.png

But what about actual structure or wildland fire responses? That's what I'm worried about
 
Jim37F said:
But what about actual structure or wildland fire responses? That's what I'm worried about
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Just sayin we kept a vegetation fire at 5 acres with 3 ff's and 1 capt. You can read my post at the top of the page for the details with TCFD.
 
VentMonkey said:
Anything I find worth bragging about is hardly within the confines of my job description:).

Back to Tulare Co. related topics:

@CentralCalEMT what can you tell us about the systems dispatch itself? I was (once) told that the companies rotate 911 calls. Is this in fact, or was it ever true?
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I heard it was a long time ago, way before I worked there. I also heard the system was way slower back then too. Today the 4 companies have a shared dispatch center with borderless dispatch. The closest unit goes regardless of company to all emergency calls. We also have borderless post moves so if a city goes to level 0 a different company is automatically sent to cover.
 
Relevant Tulare Co. topic (and it looks like they do the dispatch for the county's ambulance companies?):

http://aavems.com/our-company/company-overview/

Also, they're completely separate from American Ambulance of Fresno/ Kings County's, though their logos are remarkably similar.
 
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VentMonkey said:
Relevant Tulare Co. topic (and it looks like they do the dispatch for the county's ambulance companies?):

http://aavems.com/our-company/company-overview/

Also, they're completely separate from American Ambulance of Fresno/ Kings County's, though their logos are remarkably similar.
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Their website is somewhat confusing about dispatch. The countywide ambulance dispatch center (TCCAD) is actually a non profit organization. Each provider in Tulare County has a part in running it, but it is overall independent from any specific company to prevent a conflict of interest.

As a side note, beginning in March, Imperial is increasing starting pay to 17-17.50 per hour for new paramedics working the 2 on 5 off 3 on 4 off schedule, and offering a $4,000 sign on bonus. The base pay works out to over 62K per year to start making them competitive with most other companies. The increased call volume in the areas Imperial took over when AMR left resulted in those increases in pay.
 
i ran a full arrest while at Delano Amb doing mutual aid in Tulare County, the Tulare CO fire engine first on scene was a single man engine...he was doing cpr for about 20 minutes by himself...He said it was a normal occurrence to have single man engines..
 
toyskater86 said:
i ran a full arrest while at Delano Amb doing mutual aid in Tulare County, the Tulare CO fire engine first on scene was a single man engine...he was doing cpr for about 20 minutes by himself...He said it was a normal occurrence to have single man engines..
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that's just...scary

Seriously, not just CPR but how do you run any call effectively and safely single man?? Especially fire calls, unless it's the smallest of spot fires you can't do anything single man engine....
 
It’s single man engines supplemented by PCF’s and volunteers.
 
Jim37F said:
Seriously, not just CPR but how do you run any call effectively and safely single man?? Especially fire calls, unless it's the smallest of spot fires you can't do anything single man engine....
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Lets be realistic: most call for the FD are medical assists. Most medical calls can be handled by 2 people..... I've ran several solo in a QRV. Not ideal, but doable. Hopefully if you are at a cardiac arrest, you have requested a mutual aid company to assist you.

Currently we run a 3 man crew, so if it's an EMS call, two guys take the QRV, and if a second medical call comes in, the captain takes the brush truck solo. You still have the ambulance responding, so it's not like help isn't coming, provided you know what you are doing for those 10 minutes.

Fire calls are a different story altogether. Hard to do much with just one person; however, you can give a sizeup, call for assistance, wrap a hydrant, stretch a line, charge the line, and by then hopefully a volunteer/POC FF shows up, or your next due engine is arriving.

But at least the truck is guaranteed to get out, vs having 0 men on shift, where you might not get a driver for the truck.
 
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