I had just switched from working in the city to working in a rural station. I was tired of sitting in a parking lot every shift for 12 hours and then being held over another 2-3 hours because of short staffing issues. So I switched stations. Rural shifts were 24 hours, but you had a base station to stay at when you weren’t on a call, and the pace was generally slower.

Thanks to the new location, I had a new partner: Steve. Steve was a big man, 6’3”, 280 lbs, with wire-rimmed glasses and buzz-cut brown hair. He could intimidate a rude patient with a glance. But I learned that he was more of a gentle giant… with a wicked sense of humor! Steve had been an EMT for several years, and it showed in the quality of his work. He was good! He had attempted paramedic school before, but it’s hard to balance medic school with a full-time job, so he had dropped out. He was such a big help for me, and I appreciated it, believe me!

I had two main supervisors at this station: Shannon and Mike. Mike had transferred to this station about a month before I did. I knew of him from the city, but hadn’t worked under him. He had a reputation of being difficult to work under, and I was frankly scared of the man at the time. I later realized that he was quite fond of me as an employee, but that didn’t help things at the beginning.

The base I worked at was essentially a large house with an attached garage capable of housing two large ambulances. There was a door that opened straight from the base house into the bay, with a short landing and several steps down to the bay floor. The bay itself was cinder block walls and a concrete floor, with shelving along the back for storage of supplies and inventory. These were the days before everything became computerized. The hospitals were just starting to use computers for patient records, but everyone else were still using paper reports to keep records. We had three forms to fill out for each patient, I remember: a patient report, a HIPAA form, and then an additional sheet for continued narration if needed.

A typical shift started out like this: I would bring my bedding, clothes, toiletries, projects, etc. into the base and find an empty bedroom to dump them into. This would be my room for the shift. Then I’d go and greet the outgoing shift. We would chat about what was new in our world, what kinds of calls they’d had that day, etc. Then we would make our way to the ambulances. There are many different styles and configurations of ambulances out there. This particular station used an ambulance that was built on a FreightLiner chassis. Essentially, it was a patient compartment mounted on a semi cab. Very tall, and much taller than me! There were about 4 steps to get into this thing, and I remember that they were all directly over and flush with each other. I’m not sure, but I think the actual cab was 5 feet off the ground! We check our ambulances (affectionately referred to as “trucks”) at the start of every shift. Inventory is extremely important, as is cleanliness of the truck. We want to have everything ready to go when the tones go off for a call. This includes making sure the cab is ready with a large torchlight, maps of the service area, and patient report sheets kept in a large plastic clipboard. We also kept track of mileage and checked the oil and fuel levels.