Volunteer EMS Portland Maine...

[RunnerDoug87]

Hey hoping this is the right thread to post in and can obtain some answers. Looking at moving to the South Portland area of Maine. Wondering if anyone knows of any volunteer fire department or ambulance corps in the area? All seem privately own or local hire municipality organizations.

Thanks a bunch if can offer up some info. Wondering if you could volunteer with the local municipalities.

 

[akflightmedic]

Ummm, if you are in the city limits, then no volunteer...but Maine in general....holy moly damn near every town here is vollie with both Fire and EMS. Yes, there are privates, but I have never seen so many volunteer agencies who collectively are all in desperate need of consolidation and county run organization...but will never happen cause 'Murika! And Pride! And History! And damn all that progress stuff...we don't need it or want it.

EMS in Maine is easily 20+ years behind everywhere I have ever been minus their early willingness and adoption of Selective Spinal Immobilization. That is about the only forward thinking action I have run across where they were on board early and support it.

 

[Tigger]

Cape Elizabeth is directly adjacent to South Portland and has many volunteers by the looks of it. I think almost all of the surrounding towns are combination departments as well.

 

[E tank]

Fascinating that a metropolitan area with two training hospitals, Maine Medical and Southern Maine Medical Center has volunteer EMS in the immediate catchment area.

 

[DrParasite]

have you looked here? https://multco.us/health/providers/emergency-medical-services it was the first non-sponsored result from a internet search... Maybe you can make some phone calls to get some more location specific advice from people in the area?

but I have never seen so many volunteer agencies who collectively are all in desperate need of consolidation and county run organization...but will never happen cause 'Murika! And Pride! And History! And damn all that progress stuff...we don't need it or want it.

Apparently you have never been to New Jersey......

But after leaving NJ and moving to a county based system, I can see how there are some pretty significant drawbacks to a consolidated and county run organization, primarily when it comes to actual staffing, reserve units, and surge capacity.

 

[akflightmedic]

I have heard about the NJ issues....but I have worked County EMS systems for years, never had issues with what you are referencing. Maybe we just had a better tax base? Never had or needed reserve units in the systems I worked for and staffing definitely was never an issue.

 

[akflightmedic]

FYI, unsure if I shared, I relocated to Maine in 2016. Split my time between FL, ME and global stuff...

 

[DrParasite]

Apparently I need to work on my reading comprehension.... I thought you were referring to Portland Oregon (you know, the other, lesser known Portland).

 

[Bullets]

Fascinating that a metropolitan area with two training hospitals, Maine Medical and Southern Maine Medical Center has volunteer EMS in the immediate catchment area.

Outside the city of Portland, which coming from NJ/NYC id hardly call a city, Maine is incredibly rural. Almost 1/3 of the state population lives in Portland. When i was living up there my closest neighbor was 5 miles down the road and i was only living about 25 minutes south of Augusta, closer to the coast. Even there it wasnt really built up and populated despite being so close to the coast. North of Bangor is just basically frontier. I wasnt in EMS when i was living there but knowing what i know about it then and what i know about EMS now it doesnt surprise me that most of the state is volunteer considering the population density coupled with the....unique...attitudes of many Mainers