Oh, don't ask! We're not even running blue lights or anything right now, and the department can't afford to kit anyone out with actual medical supplies... We're just a bunch of yokels in our POVs and grubby Carharrts 
Luckily that doesn't make us look too weird around here!
With all that space, we are still fewer than 3,000 people, and the vast majority live within a 5-mile circle of the station. We just have a long stretch of sparsely populated highway. It's also easier and safer for me to respond POV than for some because my sweetie is also with the VFD, and so we're often responding together. That's not most people's situation.
Our official policy is simply, don't drive past the station to go to the scene, and usually don't drive past a scene to go to the station. The way our district is long and skinny means that usually half the people live on one side of the station or the other, so it works out pretty well for getting apparatus and responders there quickly.
I'm not suggesting everyone get a jump bag or anything, but it would be nice if we could outfit some of the mroe advanced medics who live outside of town with some equipment. We get so few calls that it would be hard to justify giving people an AED or anything, but it certainly could make a difference to that one person who ends up needing it.
Part of the year, I work out of town and go down the highway a couple times a week. That's when I'm most likely to be on scene way before anyone else, if I stumble across an MVA or something. I'm just glad it's never happened to me except when I was already in the ambulance returning from another call. I think I would go mad on scnee alone for forty minutes with nothing but, oh, a penlight and a stethoscope and a CPR mask or whatever's in my car today.
Luckily that doesn't make us look too weird around here! With all that space, we are still fewer than 3,000 people, and the vast majority live within a 5-mile circle of the station. We just have a long stretch of sparsely populated highway. It's also easier and safer for me to respond POV than for some because my sweetie is also with the VFD, and so we're often responding together. That's not most people's situation.
Our official policy is simply, don't drive past the station to go to the scene, and usually don't drive past a scene to go to the station. The way our district is long and skinny means that usually half the people live on one side of the station or the other, so it works out pretty well for getting apparatus and responders there quickly.
I'm not suggesting everyone get a jump bag or anything, but it would be nice if we could outfit some of the mroe advanced medics who live outside of town with some equipment. We get so few calls that it would be hard to justify giving people an AED or anything, but it certainly could make a difference to that one person who ends up needing it.
Part of the year, I work out of town and go down the highway a couple times a week. That's when I'm most likely to be on scene way before anyone else, if I stumble across an MVA or something. I'm just glad it's never happened to me except when I was already in the ambulance returning from another call. I think I would go mad on scnee alone for forty minutes with nothing but, oh, a penlight and a stethoscope and a CPR mask or whatever's in my car today.
