Ersteman

Yes, if your able to work those hours the overtime does indeed make a difference. But at the cost of a family, like anything where your never home. Lost one of those to the job also. AS far as illegal to work over 24. It may be. But there is no way to avoid it. Not feasible anyway. Unless, your on a call. ( happens all the time ) and your shift ends you just shut down the truck and go home? Walk off? I doubt it. ( Sorry there Mr whateverinjuryyouhave my shifts up.. its Miller time.. someone will be along to help out soon.. Yes the actual oath of a Doctor. But if you work in any form of medicine, and you have not had it beaten into you, and you don't believe that the job is to save, not harm. Then your in the wrong field. There is no position in Medicine that does not fall under a Doctor for area of practice. So you fall under that oath. No one but a Doctor is a Doctor, and everyone answers to one in their job. There is no line to draw in the sand when your job is to save. Your looking at it, honestly, with the exact mentality that is trained out. To withdraw from a situation that is not feasible bringing patients with you, or to not enter in the first place if you have zero business to be there is not cowardice, its only sense. Your not there to fight. Granted, it may be completely misunderstood that you cannot defend yourself. You can, you always have the legal right to do so. You have the legal right to do so for your patients. But that is a last resort. Not a go to. Providing weapons only bolsters that fight mentality. Besides.. if you must defend yourself. You have plenty available. But your not there to pull a ' last stand '. Your not Police, your not Fire, your Medics / EMT's. Your only there for one reason. To render aid. If a hazardous situation is 100% that is why the Police and Fire have built in Paramedic assets. As us old geezers would tell the young,, you want to bust heads and be a Medic.. join the Sheriffs Rapid Response. ( SWAT ) LOL.. That is.. perfect. Well, like a lot of things in the states.. it's also a giant world of difference. Making $45 dollars an hour for example in New York sounds great!!! But the cost of living is also outrageous.. so its not so much as it sounds. ( That's a paraphrase.. I have no idea how much they make ) But I am in West Virginia. Now this is a state of amazing differences, often only separated by a large hill. As I had mentioned, we have some cities that you would not ( and some do not ) know what the majority of the state is like. Right down to real gangers.. then you have the out there boonies. As I had also mentioned. You can literally pass from absolute poverty to mansions on the hill en route to the hospital. From backwoods coalfields and a completely different language to ' normal ' America. One of the reasons I chose to spend my longest time out in the boonies. Call it ' savior ' mentality or do gooder. Not a lot of people would stay, nor come. I loved it out there. Ok, I do admit a big portion of it was the rush.. out there.. its you, your partner, and the truck. No one to call for help, and totally on you. Maybe some extra EMT's on the local Fire.. maybe some EMT State Trooper or County Sheriff.. but ultimately.. the Medic, skill and fast thinking. It's addictive.

When you say you checked.. did you use the troubleshooter? Since you did a re-install.. are they updated versions? Some older mods / vehicles may be acting funny. No.. I didn't line check your .meta's just giving a few suggestions hip fire to narrow it down.

But that creates a catch 22 also. If a weapon is available, it not only begs to be used, but if is known to be there.. and it would not stay a secret that EMS is even defensively armed.. then people who have any intention of harm come with that knowledge. Plus the core of EMS is still medicine.. and that still includes do no harm. ( That can be interpreted to just patients.. but not a popular idea amongst Medics/EMT's to create patients... ) So how do you set a limit? You arm even defensively when is the pull out? When is the force to protect yourself, your crew and the patient limit reached? As is now part of any Official County / FD Dept Service ( here at least ) training is to ' un-train ' that desire to ' be a hero '. EMS is not equipped to run into burning buildings.. so you may hear the cries inside.. but your only creating another casualty running in.. we don't jump in the water unless your on a rescue truck and know what your doing with the right gear.. more than a few Dead Medics / EMT's serve that lesson well in heroism. The beaten into you with no mercy, and for good reason key is this order: Safety of you. Safety of crew. Patients. Sounds harsh, but without that your not helping anyone.. a downed medic / EMT is just another patient. And that is zero benefit to anyone. More than once, as I've said earlier.. despite what I wanted to do, or my partner, pull out was the only option.. pull out in any means needed, even if your dragging a patient behind you.. better to maybe hurt them a little more than see them.. or you.. hurt. Or even more likely if its that bad.. dead.

This is not all that uncommon... I am a former Paramedic in RL ( and yes briefly an L.E.O. I just in RL hated it.. Medic is more me.. ) We used to encounter all sorts of issues with civilians, be it rage, outright hostility and once I even had a full drug bag stolen at gun point.. ( I guess they learned that the drug bags are not where what they are after is stored.. ) not here anyway. I ve had more than a few calls where the situation was so bad that we had to pull out until L.E. arrived.. and even worse ( ? ) I once had to use a real gangbanger I knew from previous calls for his family to chill his posse out. As far as breakdown of agencies.. that really just matters where you are.. Here the large cities have both F.D. ran ones.. and the county ones. Some of the smaller areas or rural counties use not only County ( normally very small and more often than not rely heavily on volunteers ) and private companies with a mutual aid agreement in place. Also the lowest paying job in any form of Emergency Service on average.. Being in EMS often puts you in harms way... with little pay and often zero benefits. This is also why the turn over is so high.. that and you really have no hope for ever being promoted. You really only have two options... front of the truck.. back of the truck.. But the ones that stay.. stay because we care about the job. ** Thought just for info I would expand this a bit.. My first EMS job as an EMT paid $8.50 to start with no benefits until 90 day probationary was over. After that it went up to a whopping $9.00 with Self Pay Benefits.. not including any EMS charges.. those were free as long as they were in County Service use.. When I became a Medic.. being much more in demand of course.. I took a position making $10.50 with partial pay benefits.. then took all the advanced courses ( at my cost of course ) to not only be more in demand and a better Medic.. but get paid more. My final County years started me at $14.75 with supplemented benefits.. however I was one of only 4 Medics in the county. We worked 24 or 72 hour shifts.. and only two on duty for the whole County at any time.. with only 4 stations in the county. The other 2 stations were Basic Trucks.. meaning crewed by EMT's or one EMT and a First Responder Driver. Often I worked with a non EMT First Responder myself. Off duty we were expected to keep a stocked out bag in our POV and we had E Packs on POV's ( your own car ) like any volunteer Firefighter would.. I cant count the number of times I had to run an intercept in my car to meet an Ambulance for Medic Support in route to a Hospital.. closest Hospital ground transport at Code was still 45 mins from the center of the County.. don't even ask if out in the boondocks.. Don't even like to think about the times I had to standby.. knowing that people needed help.. and could not really do anything until Fire or Law were on scene.. Reinforced by the fact that if I got hurt trying to help.. no one else was able to come.. sleep with those memories. EMS is a sad state overall. Everywhere from what I have learned in the US. But how to fix it? Money? Sure.. but who pays? Most of my patients had no money anyway.. and no insurance.. Counties that are so small and can only afford 4 Medics at just $14.. how do they get more? It's a struggle to keep the drugs stocked.. not to mention the trucks running. Then as I said.. it's hard to keep staff.. the money is awful. The hours horrid. The danger real. Zero promotion chance.. I stayed because I loved it. But I also had already retired from the Army.. so how do you keep people in the field??