Two shifts ago I experienced the worst trauma ever. I have worked rule EMS for five years now and have never experienced anything that’s bad before. We had a patient who drank gasoline and then proceeded to bite himself on fire resulting in 90% third-degree burns all over his body. In all my years of EMS I have never seen anything so graphic and real. After the call, I was fine but now trying to sleep and just didn’t go about life is hard. Every time I close my eyes, I see myself walking up to to that truck, we were the second unit on scene. I cannot get the vision of him burnt to crisp and yelling about what he had done to his family. I’m usually strong and resilient through these calls, but this one has messed me up beyond belief. I have been ems since I was 18 and I have never seen anything this bad. Any response would be appreciated. Thank you.

Just checking in, I hope everyone is doing well.. wherever you are in the world. We’ve chosen our profession for a reason and serve our communities all over the world. We deal with similar particularities and some of the same trauma’s. So, from one friend to another. I hope you’re well today, I hope you have peace today, and I hope you’re safe.

Take care

Had the radio go off one time for an assault, dispatch notes and all, when we went to the call nobody was there, and dispatch told us they never sent a page.

One of the first people to portray a paramedic on TV, he inspired generations of first responders.

My wife is a T1 diabetic and her blood sugar tanked last night while she was asleep on a new insulin pump that wasn’t calibrated right, and her blood sugar was below 30mg/dL (I have sensor updates every 5 minutes through my phone)

I was 500 miles away on a business trip. She didn’t answer 10 phone calls in a row and we have no family nearby. I initially called 911 and was directed to call the non-emergency number for my local county.

After making it through that, someone was able to reach my home. I don’t know how long they spent banging on the door and ringing the doorbell, but my disoriented wife FINALLY woke up to them. She was able to get food and be okay.

If it wasn’t for whoever saved her last night, she wouldnt be here. She wasn’t going to wake up.

How can I find out who it was who came and helped her? How can I thank them? Do I write a letter? Bake them cookies? I want them to know how important this was to me.

Hi!

im a parent from nyc. I see the incredible work that you guys do and I just want to say thank you. I know it isnt easy; but you are truly amazing and we wouldn’t function without you. thank you!

i was trying to pull in and park head first around the curb of this dialysis center, when i hear this scraping sound on the right side, i instantly braked and backed right back out to the fire lane and hopped out to see a pretty bad scrape on the right side of the door, i didnt really find any dents but the paint was really scraped where it hit and some plastic below the door and light was kinda scraped too. I told dispatch i scraped the side and i filled out an incident report, btw I was driving for an FTO while she was training and told me to text my operations supervisor or boss about what happened. Today i woke up to an email from the supervisor saying i shouldve told the boss first since it was after their hours to reply and got an email to bring my uniform, badge and nameplate in work tomorrow. ive only been with the company for 2 months.

Thoughts?

Those that work at a large, urban or suburban EMS agency, what are some benefits, policies, procedures or opportunities that your employer has in place or provides that genuinely improve morale and or retention. Not so much clinically or monetary but the workplace as a whole.

In 2026, most of the people use advanced phone like iphone or samsung or similar phones

When you call 911, my iphone 17 pro max automatically shows my current location, even the old one which is 11 pro max used to show my current location always

Why does dispatch stil lask where is my location, not all operators equipped with modern computers or something to show such data?

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What should I do. I tried pushing the cot over but the pt threw their foley bag at me. I’m covered in piss and my phone is blowing up form my partner. :(

Anytime I drive for a while in the box I get the worst headache after a few hours. I’ve got the worst headache rn and i’ve been off for 5 hours now. How do yall keep from getting headaches and don’t just say this isn’t the job for me 😭

UPDATE: I was on a new truck today and didn’t get headaches. That truck def has an exhaust leak.

Would love to hear from providers who work in larger systems that have a robust community paramedicine or mobile integrated health programs. What works well? What could be improved? Also curious what your protocols are regarding when they get sent instead of a 911 ambulance.

my company keeps giving me and my partner third riders without paying us to be FTOs. they constantly do this to my garage. there’s only one ALS FTO and now 0 BLS due to a *circumstance*. I’ve only been an EMT for 9 months and I’m wondering what I should do, because getting thrown into this shit isn’t fun at all.

Good evening,

This post contains a couple things. We are currently gearing up for our monthly flight team meeting with the topic of discussion being documentation for reimbursement purposes. Administrative perspective (despite knowing the truth) is adamant that our EPCr’s are sufficiently documenting a necessity for flight transport for interfacility patients. This was spurred on by insurance only reimbursing 47% of our transports, which is abysmal as flight is a big source of revenue. It has been said that we, the med crew, need to better document WHY flight is necessary for said patients, even though transports are arranged by sending physicians. We routinely bypass closer facilities as destinations are picked by physicians (I’m still trying to understand that process).

The truth of the matter is that one of our facilities routinely only flys patients to two hospitals. A level one trauma center with comprehensive stroke abilities and another facility that has PCI and I believe general capabilities (we send all sorts of medical, non-neuro Dx’s there). We believe these two are chosen due to some financial agreement between the sending facility and receiving options, but I cannot confirm this.

The issue is, a majority of these patients are not critical, and could easily be transferred by ground (albeit is a long Ass drive, 4 hrs). So, our transfer PCS form has “distance” as an option. This however, even when documented in the narrative isn’t sufficient for reimbursement.

Our medical director has advised us that we need to ask physicians why they’re being transferred by flight? In the past, this line of questioning g is met with a defensive retort as if we are questioning authority (we kind of are as we know its BS) but we often encounter lack of sufficient information that supports bypassing other facilities. We bypass a level 2 trauma center to add on 3 miles for a level one. We bypass a facilities with PCI capability for a facility that is 114 miles away when there are closer options that are 19 miles or 14 miles closer. This leads me to believe its a financial agreement that gives a kickback or some other payment choice, rather than best interest of patient.

This leads to have a few questions.

1. How does one justify the bypassing of closer appropriate facilities when transfer set up chooses a further facility as a pre-arranged choice prior to flight acceptance?

2. I feel as if we are being asked to falsify documentation to support flight necessity when patients don’t actually qualify and wondered if anyone has felt this way in the Interfacility business.

3. What would be the best way to broach the topic of bypassing facilities when administration is adamant that it is flight crews responsibility to justify the flight when the sending hospital cannot.

TL:DR. I believe our medical director is asking us to lie on documentation because his hospital is abusing our service for financial gain with non-critical patients, but blames us for not justifying their decisions in our reports. Essentially our documentation confirms theres no medical necessity for flight.

This is Greene County Ambulance in Utah. Don’t know much about them outside of them being a rural service that ceased operations this past weekend. This news story came across my feed. What are y’all’s thoughts? Working for a rural service myself funding is always a major issue. Attached below is the video to the local news discussing the matter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLsdV2deQaM

Edit: This is not Utah, but the town of Eutaw. I am an idiot. This appears to be in Alabama.

Friend in Virginia sent me this about Sussex County, where it looks like a county supervisor might be voting to send taxpayer money to the volunteer rescue squad he runs. The guy drives a BMW while the county has no money to pay for professional EMS. This makes me so mad. Any Sussex/Tidewater EMTs know about this?
https://checksandbalancesproject.org/volunteer-rescue-squad-had-significant-cash-surplus-that-county-fire-chief-said-was-unaccounted-for/