Your Experience/Time in EMS

[MedicTom]

I once had an instructor throw out a figure that the career avg of a person in EMS is 8 years, though something like 50% don't make it past the first 2 years. They never stated if the study was based off of paid or volunteer or both

 

[AJ Hidell]

With 36 people responding:

55 percent have been in EMS less than five years.

27 percent have been in EMS over ten years.

8 percent have managed to make it 20 plus years.

 

[flhtci01]

Just got my 20 year Ski Patrol pin last night.

add to that
2 years B
3 years I
2 years P

 

[mycrofft]

I've given the breakdown before. Some "snapshots":

When I started, one of my second ambulance company's units (a Caddy conversion) had a mechanical siren.

The beacons on my rescue truck had an incandescent bulb in the middle and a concave mirror that went around and around and around and around.

No dispatch computers, no cell phones, no GPS, and no map books where I worked.

MAST was just becoming hot stuff, levophed and bicarb were given freely in the field, and the KED was NEW.


Modular ambulances appeared, and the DOT began classifying ambulances and phasing out Caddy conversions and Suburban drop-in kits.

We treated seizures by cutting a hole in their heads with obsidian knives and letting out the evil spirits. ('S TRUE! Fred and Barney would hold them while I got the stone axe).

 

[eynonqrs]

I have been involved in EMS for 17 years. Started and still running with my volunteer service. Currently working for a private service as a dispatcher. I have been working for paid services for about 10 years now. Had a short 6 year stint in construction and was part of the emergency brigade there. I got bitten by the EMS bug and have never looked back. I enjoy every minute of it. My father and uncle ran with a volunteer service, and that is how I got bitten by the bug.

 

[spnx]

We treated seizures by cutting a hole in their heads with obsidian knives and letting out the evil spirits. ('S TRUE! Fred and Barney would hold them while I got the stone axe).
[/FONT]

ROTFLMAO!

(rolling on the floor, laughing my *** off, since that was deemed as too short, by the post filter)

 

[syd]

I'm going on 3 years in a volunteer department running 80+% medical...

 

[Anomalous]

When I started, one of my second ambulance company's units (a Caddy conversion) had a mechanical siren....
...We treated seizures by cutting a hole in their heads with obsidian knives and letting out the evil spirits. ('S TRUE! Fred and Barney would hold them while I got the stone axe).

Don't forget the leeches and blood-letting.

30 years in July. That should help get the average up.

 

[46Young]

Six months EMT-B for a private agency, 2 1/2 years EMT-B NYC, 2 years EMT-P NYC, six months EMT-P for Charleston County EMS, one year as a firemedic for Fairfax County Fire Rescue, Va. 6 1/2 total, and many more to come!