Those dreaded 24s

[Handsome Robb]

Weird. Our busiest time is from 1000-1600 then it slows down big time.

Not sure if it's more in urban systems but I know our peak times are generally around rush hour in the morning and evening starting just before and ending just after.

Granted we are busy all day for the most part but it noticeably picks up around those times.

 

[mycrofft]

Used to work alternating 24's in USAF FD (24 on, 24 off, two Kelly days a month) and work an eight hr day shift for a private ambulance company on my days off (MOSTLY IFT). I was in my early twenties and could stand it.

Now, doing anything critical (i.e., as in making clinical decisions) with 24's? Not smart, studies prove it, and yet we continue. How many happily married people with shared responsibilities and kids can work 24's?

 

[Epi-do]

Based off of monthly totals, I am guessing my new job does 2000-2500 runs per year, between 2 trucks. (Sometimes there is a 3rd truck with an oncall crew, for if we were to have a really busy day, but most of the time it is just the two trucks.) We work 24/48, and I love it.

Our family has gotten into a routine with the schedule, since I worked the same schedule at my previous job, so for the past 6 years. It isn't a shift that works for everyone or for every system, but I like it.

 

[mycrofft]

We changed (were forced) to 12 hr shifts from eight, and most of our LVN's had to quit because they couldn't afford child care.

 

[DrParasite]

As others have stated, 24s are awesome if you are in a station, and are slow (my definition of slow being less than 8 calls average in 24 hours). They would never work where I work, where we average 18 calls in 12 hours. If you are in a station, with a bed, and get enough down time/sleep time, than there is nothing wrong with working a 24. esp if you can sleep during the day when all you other chores have been completed.

8s suck, commuting 5 days a week gets old, esp when you get used to working 3 and 4 days a week.

I have to admit, I would gladly take a 24 hour truck where you do 0-1 call a shift. If you pay me well, give me good benefits, than I will smile happily, take a long nap, and work on side projects at the station. But I would have to pick up a side job or OT on a busy 12 hour truck just to maintain my sanity.

btw, the reason most places start their 24s at 0700ish is so the crew can sleep at night, and the well rested crew can come in and do their chores, and the sleeping crew can go home. if the shift change was at noon, the night crew would want to sleep until noon until they go home.

Our bussiest time period is typically between noon and 6pm during the week, and 10pm and 2am 7 days a week.

We I think our agency does about 70,000 runs a year, with between 10 and 15 units on over 24 hours. kinda hard to get a good nights sleep when you are that busy.

 

[abckidsmom]

Used to work alternating 24's in USAF FD (24 on, 24 off, two Kelly days a month) and work an eight hr day shift for a private ambulance company on my days off (MOSTLY IFT). I was in my early twenties and could stand it.

Now, doing anything critical (i.e., as in making clinical decisions) with 24's? Not smart, studies prove it, and yet we continue. How many happily married people with shared responsibilities and kids can work 24's?

I find 24s to be ideal for family life. We come and go, the kids are at home. Sometimes with Grandma, sometimes their dad or me, sometimes a combination thereof. Their lives remain constant.

And we have a crapload of time off. It's nice.

 

[Clare]

The union would never hear of 24 hour shifts as a matter of course, that and it'd become very problematic with the restrictions on driving hours.

Some rural stations have an on call 100% nights (i.e. working 12 hours, 12 hours on call repeated twice) so basically a ninetysix hour work week but they are only at very rural stations with a low workload and are extremely unpopular both with the union, the Paramedics and the opposition political parties.

 

[Medic Tim]

We lost all 24 hour shifts (except for 3 trucks on islands only accessible by ferry. So 3 out of 146) last year. It is all 12s and 8s for us now. some of our bases run less than a 100 calls a year but it was deemed unsafe as we run a province wide ssm. I would love to work a 24 in a slow to moderate station.

 

[epipusher]

A 24 hour truck would be great if it was a slow truck. Kelly day would be great.

 

[Outbac1]

When I started 11 years ago I worked in a 24hr base that was slow. Maybe 20 calls a month, including transfers. The next unit was 50km (30mi) away. When one of us was on a call the other went to a "Post" halfway between for coverage. Other than these "postings" you usually got lots of sleep. Then they started using the 24hr trucks as bit$$ trucks. It was not unusual for them to get a long haul transfer (4hrs +/-) first thing in the AM and do more calls and transfers all day in other areas not getting back to their base until after midnight. More than one unit parked in the huckleberries on their return.

We have since eliminated all our 24hr trucks except for a few in remote locations. Rumour has it they will be going to 12s soon. Our company has had a big kick on lately for "fatigue management". We are not allowed to work a double shift anymore, OT has been reduced to not more than 120 hrs in a 2 week period. Our avg 2 week pay is 84. All in the name of safety.

Rumour has it we are getting a new shift schedule that has an even pay of 84 hrs every 2 weeks. Every other weekend off. Somewhere in there we work 3 shifts in a row either all days or all nights. It has also been suggested that we will work 2 weeks of all days and then 2 weeks of all nights.
Personally I'm not looking forward to this as I hate nights as I don't sleep well during the day. I seldom get more than 4 hrs sleep and thats probably not consecutive hrs. I also like my 4 days off every 4 days.
Oh well apparently they know whats best for me. :sad:

 

[sweetpete]

We work a 48/96 schedule on the fire truck. It's great. And we don't transport, so that makes it even better. We used to be 24/48, but that was a drag. Seemed like I spent more time on the road to and from work than I did actually working.

I'm blessed either way though.

 

[Merck]

Wow. We would never consider 24s. Aside from the obvious safety issues we are generally way too busy. Honestly, it surprises me it happens anywhere. I can see it in FD because it's generally slow and no transport, but that just sounds like an awful job all around.

 

[sirengirl]

I'm terribly spoiled where I am, I work a 24/72 and 16 of that 24 is contracted by a major hospital in the area exclusively to do transfers out of their satellite ER to other hospitals for admits/surgeries/etc. I get to work in the satellite ER when not transporting, no one really gives me crap if I take a nap in the middle of the day, and sometimes I only have 2 transports in a 24. That being said, sometimes the ER is slammed and I get screwed helping in the ER all day long and then when my company "owns" me again at 1am they keep me up running BLS bullshoot all night (I run an ALS rig) and let the BLS truck sleep.... There was that 25-hour shift from you-know-where that almost made me kill myself falling asleep at the wheel three times on the interstate driving home...

But all in all I can easily pay all my bills working basically 2 days a week and if they wanted to base me anywhere else I would quit. Seriously. I am incredibly, incredibly blessed to do mostly emergency (well usually not emergency but out-of-an-ER-into-another-hospital, so sometimes emergency) transports and not as many dialysis/oncology/etc calls like I do when I'm based anywhere else.

....cause we have a frequent dialysis pt who is a demanding you-know-what and literally weighs about 350. On a manual bariatric stretcher. :blink: nothanks.

 

[leoemt]

We don't have a slow time. We are busy all day with almost 400 calls daily in the city.

Currently I work 12's on a Spokane schedule. However, on the 6th I will be switching to 12's on a back half schedule. So I will be working every Fri, Sat, Sun and every other Thur. 4 hours built in overtime on every paycheck.

SSM isn't bad, but we aren't idle long enough to get bored. We handle around 150,000 transports annually

 

[RocketMedic]

EMSA is at 2100 calls for 2013. Crazy here in Flyover Country.

 

[WuLabsWuTecH]

This is very situational. One of my departments is rural and gets about 3-4 runs/day on average. Granted each run takes about 2 hours if we transport, but split between the two trucks, a 24 hour shift isn't all that bad. Even on days when we don't have a second truck, unless the timing of the runs just suck (get beck into bed for an hour before being banged out again) it's usually very manageable and I've only had 2 nights in recent memory that I left feeling very tired.

My suburban department can get upwards of 10 runs during the day hours, and we can be very busy with mutual aid and such, but I can count on one hand the number of runs I've taken past midnight at that department in 2012. 24's here are also not a problem. (The run volume is so low that we are considering not staffing between 0000-0600 anymore).

St. Louis City Fire had an issue with their medics being dead tired all the time since the slowest truck in the city dud 24 runs in a 24 so they moved their guys to 12's. On the other hand, Brentwood, about 3 miles out on highway 40, recently moved their guys to 48/96's because they have low enough run volumes!

 

[Aidey]

Currently I work 12's on a Spokane schedule.

I don't think the "Spokane schedule" is an established schedule like the modified Detroit is.

 

[leoemt]

I don't think the "Spokane schedule" is an established schedule like the modified Detroit is.

It is around here. For those unfamiliar with it it goes like this: Mon, Tue work; Wed, Thur off; Fri, Sat, Sun work; Mon, Tue off; Wed, Thur work; Fri, Sat, Sun off. Its nice because you get every other weekend off.

We have a variety of schedules at my company with the majority being Spokane. However with the Shift re-bid I think they have done away with it as everyone I have talked to is doing either a front half or back half 3/4 split.

Our CCT's work either 14, 16 or 24 hours depending on where they are stationed.

 

[Aidey]

Ahhh, the actual name of that schedule is a Panama Schedule.

 

[Milla3P]

Now what does slow-to-medium mean? I do 16 on, 16 off, 16 on, 16 off, 8 on, 96 off and frequently trade off for one 24 at least once a month. In that time last year I did just under 900 calls myself. All my coworkers did the same.

I just looked up the stats tonight after I came into work and I don't consider that slow, or incredibly busy. I'm on my third shift this year and haven't turned a wheel yet and am lying in a bed. Sometimes I do more calls than hours in my shifts. I consider 10 in 8 hours or 20 in 16 busy, but a lot of times I still have plenty of recliner time and full nights sleep.