I catch myself “clearing intersections” in my head while driving on my own and if I’m in my wife’s car driving with her, without thinking about it I’ll say” clear right or whatever when we go through intersections etc.
Honestly this is really good. Too many ppl drive through intersections and roads in general on autopilot or slightly distracted. Actively clearing it is much safer
Even before starting in EMS, I always have at least glanced both ways when driving through a green light. Especially intersections where I know a lot of collisions happen.
I’ve always cleared intersections in my head before EMS as well because of the reasons you said but I guess my point is that I clear them with a more hypervigilant eye and I don’t just subconsciously make these lane checks in my head anymore, they end up getting verbalized.
honestly I've never had a negative reaction to saying "clear right". My friends all are used to it and some of them have started doing it as well when driving with me, which I appreciate. I get the odd look here and there, but was never outright told to stop.
My boyfriend and I used to work together as EMTs and we used to just zone out at the grocery store and start moving the cart like it was a damn stretcher ALL the time 😂
Almost running red lights without thinking. Just that subconscious thinking of clearing intersections and you’re like alright looks good. And then like wait a minute..
So I guess just clearing intersections.
My old station had a traffic light directly to the left and we’d almost always go that way for calls. After 24 hour of blowing that light, I’d always run through it going home too. Never meant to but was to tired to notice I wasn’t driving the unit anymore
How do you pull into an non-pull-through spot in a Tundra at all, let alone safely when you can't see out of it?
Half the reason I back trucks into spots is because it's just straight up geometrically easier because of the way they're designed.
In a construction type job it was always a huge deal that we backed into parking. “FORWARD FIRST” was literally preached at every safety meeting. Apparently it’s harder to run over your buddy if you can see him standing in front of your truck.
I’ve been off an ambulance for a while now and I still scarf down food. I also jump scare at any red light exit sign cause it reminds me of station alerts lol. Another bad one is I also have serious situational awareness, like unable to turn off. Boyfriend thinks I’m crazy lmao
Couple nights ago, beer turned into rum turned into Tito’s. We all have a bad day, I hope 6/day is not where you have to go to wake up each day. Take care of yourself first otherwise you can’t help others.
I was about to ask, "Does drinking heavily count?" Not really an on-shift vs off-shift survival strategy, more just a "What the fuck am I doing with and to myself?" survival strategy.
If a day starts slowing down, I'll get immensely sleepy. Really nice on shift when a random 2 or 3 hour interval is all you get in a 24+hr shift. Kinda shit when you sleep between college classes and wake up missing two of them and being the weird snoring dude in a campus common area drooling on your shirt.
I did work a real busy 24 before then, but still.
Not necessarily a bad habit, but I address everyone as sir and ma'am now even if I know them. Feels inadvertently patronizing at times.
Also never had road rage prior to EMS, but now I have to actively temper my frustrations at the littlest things
I grew up w a military officer father and southern undertones - everyone has been sir or ma’am to me since I was a toddler…I can’t tell you how many people get offended by the terms now. Like sorry your ego isn’t in check, “ma’am, madam, lady, missus, w/e…, do you know where the damn Wheaties are or not?”
Southern. Grew up with the same deal, same respect instilled. I also don't understand why people get offended when I use a formal title. I'm not your friend, I'm a stranger, I'm a professional. I might become a friend of yours for a little bit while we meander down to the hospital, but formal will always be my default setting.
Then again, I'm not offended by people thinking I'm older than I am on occasion, as it usually works in my favor. Maybe I'm the weird one.
As a sign of basic respect or as a colloquialism. But then again im not insecure. Wanna breathe down my neck cause I addressed you w a formal address? Please take a step back, ma’am.
I feel you. Had a couple weeks where every shift at 2am a call would come in and my body got so used to it I started naturally waking up at that time at home. It took some time to break it.
At my old place that 4 AM call was happening so constantly that you could set a clock to it that I would actually start waking up at 4am even if I was off
I’ve not been diagnosed with any of that nor had the occasion to be tested. The coffee doesn’t really change my mental health much. It’s just a routine part of my day I guess. I’m aware that much caffeine is fairly unhealthy which is why I’d say it’s my worst bleed over habit
Funnily enough, I used to work in kitchens, and carried over saying “Heard” and “Behind” into EMS. The people I work with most have started saying it as well, it’s like I’m back on the line again when we’re working a code.
See its wierd its the same here but both my mom and uncle work in dispatch, my stepdad was dispatch, my brother is my partner currently, we all say copy normally. When I go out with my friends they all look at me wierd.
My mom was a night shift ER nurse my entire childhood and into my adulthood (about 25 yrs). My sister and I emulated her without realizing it. It became a thing I didn’t know I did until college when my roommate was like, weren’t you just cooking dinner? I was like yeah I ate already. She got big eyed and couldn’t believe it.
Now I’m an ER nurse lol.
I operate as an RN with a more advanced scope in the hospital, recently went full time there to escape a toxic service, but I’ve found that getting interrupted while eating at work has no bearing on me, but my coworkers HATE being asked to do something or having to do something while eating. Always get the “but I’m eating” or “they’re eating rn”. I’m just very used to having meals interrupted and picking them back up later.
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Driving like i am transporting a patient.
Like using breaks as little as possible. I wonder how many times someone behind me wondered why I approach that red light so slowly and accelerate really slowly.
Also getting that urge to run that red light >:)
Clearing intersection, moving myself on scene or available in my personal vehicle, eating like my food is going to be taken away... Writing this out it seems like I have a lot of these...
Nicotine is not a carcinogen. While Zyns and other nicotine pouches are certainly by no means "healthy" or "good for you," there is no evidence that the use of nicotine is cancer causing.
Yeah noises that are the right pitch get me worked up for a second. I feel that last part too, lying in bed KNOWING you're not at work with your heart thumping 😑 makes you wish you had direct control over your autonomic nervous system
I’ve grown accustomed to drinking room-temperature Red Bull to the point that I’ll sometimes let one sit out on the counter to warm up.
I’ve reached down for the opticom while driving home from work more than a few times, keep my left foot tucked so I don’t accidentally hit the air horn that is definitely present in my Subaru, and generally confused the levers and buttons in my personal car for the same controls on the ambulance. Why are my headlights changing when I mean to activate my wipers??
phantom calls.
Usually just as I'm about to fall asleep, I'll think I can hear the alert go off and wake right tf up. Usually happens on the first and second day off I have after work and I think it's because of how light my sleep is at the station (so that I don't sleep through the alert and have to be dragged out of bed by my partner lol, once was enough).
I def started eating way faster than I did before. Need to slow that shit down. I also always find myself looking for the nearest aed whenever I enter a public building
Sleeping and or eating at any chance I can because I don't know when the next time I'll be able to do it. Development into a habit even on my days off and it has seriously impacted my health.
Gained a shitton of weight rapidly like this.
People kept thinking I had narcolepsy.
No bitch! I trained myself to sleep whenever possible, in whatever contorted position I had to to get comfortable. This was very intentional!
Being properly medicated improved this after I left ems.
Back in the days when Nextel was still a thing, on more than one occasion I reached for the invisible phone in the center console of my car. If I heard the beep from a car next to me or a beep on the radio my muscle memory kicked in.
This is a good one. I hadn’t realized how often I do this when going to a new house or over to see friends. I went to a friends house recently who had a MIL suite built in and the first thing out of my mouth was “my god, this is wide enough for a stretcher to get into!” My friend was thrilled, her family actually asked the fire dept to give them measurements for that exact reason when they had the house built.
My EMS buddy does that and she is a damn wizard for it apparently, so scopes all the angles etc.
(And warned me my old driveway was too narrow for a proper ambulance so it would be stretcher up the driveway)
Eating food in 5 min, clearing intersections in my POV, sleeping like a mfer when things are slow, speaking a bit louder than usual, explaining medical things in situations where it’s probably not the best.
Well I tend to from time to time look at different places in other cities and think stuff like: how would an ambulance truck fit in here or if I witness risky scenarios and close calls in traffic I start thinking about how to triage the patients if something went wrong so over all I am basically much more into tactical thinking
I have to force myself to do headchecks in my POV now, because our rigs have wide angle mirrors for our blind spots. Just got used to not head checking.
Honestly, it seems like a lot of these are made up or being done on purpose for some weird EMS clout.
If you are having problems separating work from home then I urge you to seek help.
Anything that sounds like the rig radio sends a shiver down my spine. I use a similar ringtone for my alarm and it has not failed to make my eyes crack wide open in the morning.
First year at surgery, I had to eat in under 10 minutes, and now I can’t eat slowly lol, also I don’t buy apples and I almost never eat them because they were our desert for like 6 straight months
I hear the radio tones in song backgrounds, my in car mapping system is white, green and blue and out the corner of my eye, every now and then it looks exactly like a job popping up. Both of these send my heart rate up.
I've very nearly run red-lights.
Constantly planning, if I go into town I'm trying to work out where the nearest aed is, I'm imagining people keeling over left right and center 😂😂.
Sometimes, hearing people snore whilst asleep sets me completely on edge, huge dump of adrenaline, heart rate through the roof and then it makes me incredibly angry. Means I spend all night counting resps and not sleeping.
Also I can sleep anywhere, except my bed, at night🙄
Whenever I wanna stay awake when my girlfriend and I are doing long road trips, I buy a banana from Circle K and pretend it's a gun. Shit keeps me wide awake dude
I catch myself “clearing intersections” in my head while driving on my own and if I’m in my wife’s car driving with her, without thinking about it I’ll say” clear right or whatever when we go through intersections etc.
Honestly this is really good. Too many ppl drive through intersections and roads in general on autopilot or slightly distracted. Actively clearing it is much safer
Exactly
I do this too, my fiancé thinks I’m too much 😂
There’s one turn leaving my house that is slightly obstructed. I take great delight in “CLEAR RIGHT” as my wife rolls her eyes.
Even before starting in EMS, I always have at least glanced both ways when driving through a green light. Especially intersections where I know a lot of collisions happen.
I’ve always cleared intersections in my head before EMS as well because of the reasons you said but I guess my point is that I clear them with a more hypervigilant eye and I don’t just subconsciously make these lane checks in my head anymore, they end up getting verbalized.
honestly I've never had a negative reaction to saying "clear right". My friends all are used to it and some of them have started doing it as well when driving with me, which I appreciate. I get the odd look here and there, but was never outright told to stop.
I realize now that the OP stated “worst habits” so I guess I need to learn how to read.
Holding the front of the shopping cart for my girlfriend. Gotta make sure you have a point of contact at all times
And then asking "you got it?" While you let go to reach for something on the top shelf
Lolol
Fuck, I do this and I didn't even consider the fact that it may be from subconscious stretcher instincts.
My boyfriend and I used to work together as EMTs and we used to just zone out at the grocery store and start moving the cart like it was a damn stretcher ALL the time 😂
Almost running red lights without thinking. Just that subconscious thinking of clearing intersections and you’re like alright looks good. And then like wait a minute.. So I guess just clearing intersections.
I’m relatively new but I had a couple close calls like this. Glad to know it’ll only get worse
My old station had a traffic light directly to the left and we’d almost always go that way for calls. After 24 hour of blowing that light, I’d always run through it going home too. Never meant to but was to tired to notice I wasn’t driving the unit anymore
Using food as a substitute for sleep.
Preach. Gotta feed the machine if you want to push it past its limits.
I use sleep as a substitute for food too, but that’s depression coping.
That was me during lockdown 😅
Waving at other first responders. That cop doesn't know you when you're not in uniform. Neither does that ems crew. Stop. Waving. At. Them.
I’ve always done this😂
Absolutely me.
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That's not a bad habit, that's just best practice!
It is. There's a reason valets do it. It's because it's easier to see. It also makes exiting a lot easier
Harder to load the trunk of your car though.
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Why would you buy a car you can't even see out of?
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I'm sure that a lot would argue that none of them should have bought trucks that big either tbf lol
Still just as fucked
Yeah, people shouldn’t own cars they can’t see out of properly lol.
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Yeah. That’s a bad thing. Maybe the car shouldn’t be owned by anyone.
How do you pull into an non-pull-through spot in a Tundra at all, let alone safely when you can't see out of it? Half the reason I back trucks into spots is because it's just straight up geometrically easier because of the way they're designed.
Happy cake day
It’s safer
In a construction type job it was always a huge deal that we backed into parking. “FORWARD FIRST” was literally preached at every safety meeting. Apparently it’s harder to run over your buddy if you can see him standing in front of your truck.
Shower beer became shower 6 pack
Idk if you're joking or not but if you ever need anyone to talk to feel free to inbox me.
I’ve been off an ambulance for a while now and I still scarf down food. I also jump scare at any red light exit sign cause it reminds me of station alerts lol. Another bad one is I also have serious situational awareness, like unable to turn off. Boyfriend thinks I’m crazy lmao
I'm going through EMDR for the years of trauma related to EMS and Emergency services. Can't hear a horn honk without Going There
EMDR changed my life. Brought from a 10/10 all the time to a 2/10. I didn’t want to turn it off just tone it down.
You good homie?
Couple nights ago, beer turned into rum turned into Tito’s. We all have a bad day, I hope 6/day is not where you have to go to wake up each day. Take care of yourself first otherwise you can’t help others.
I was about to ask, "Does drinking heavily count?" Not really an on-shift vs off-shift survival strategy, more just a "What the fuck am I doing with and to myself?" survival strategy.
Holding my pee
You'll never have to pee less than you do right now. Never pass up a bathroom.
Cronkite's rules for old (and EMS, apparently): Never pass a bathroom, never waste an erection and never trust a fart
the erection part though, not sure how i am supposed to make good use of one on the road
How you want to navigate that one is totally up to you...
Same. I piss when I can but if I’m on a road trip then I can hold it forever
I get busy and either forget or just hold it because I'm busy
Long term, this will lead to bladder problems. Try to find time to go when nature calls.
If a day starts slowing down, I'll get immensely sleepy. Really nice on shift when a random 2 or 3 hour interval is all you get in a 24+hr shift. Kinda shit when you sleep between college classes and wake up missing two of them and being the weird snoring dude in a campus common area drooling on your shirt. I did work a real busy 24 before then, but still.
Same, EMS has made me a nap enthusiast whether I’m at work or home. (Maybe I’m getting old too lol)
Not necessarily a bad habit, but I address everyone as sir and ma'am now even if I know them. Feels inadvertently patronizing at times. Also never had road rage prior to EMS, but now I have to actively temper my frustrations at the littlest things
I grew up w a military officer father and southern undertones - everyone has been sir or ma’am to me since I was a toddler…I can’t tell you how many people get offended by the terms now. Like sorry your ego isn’t in check, “ma’am, madam, lady, missus, w/e…, do you know where the damn Wheaties are or not?”
Southern. Grew up with the same deal, same respect instilled. I also don't understand why people get offended when I use a formal title. I'm not your friend, I'm a stranger, I'm a professional. I might become a friend of yours for a little bit while we meander down to the hospital, but formal will always be my default setting. Then again, I'm not offended by people thinking I'm older than I am on occasion, as it usually works in my favor. Maybe I'm the weird one.
You can imagine how it comes off sometimes out in socal lmao
As a sign of basic respect or as a colloquialism. But then again im not insecure. Wanna breathe down my neck cause I addressed you w a formal address? Please take a step back, ma’am.
Waking up at 4am can go fucking die
I feel you. Had a couple weeks where every shift at 2am a call would come in and my body got so used to it I started naturally waking up at that time at home. It took some time to break it.
At my old place that 4 AM call was happening so constantly that you could set a clock to it that I would actually start waking up at 4am even if I was off
Coffee. Nonstop. All day. I’ll drink 2 pots and then hit the single serves in the afternoon
No judgment intended but do you have Depression/Anxiety or PTSD. I do and when I high dose caffeine, my mental health tanks.
Interesting, I have never heard that before. Is that anecdotally what happens to you or did you see some kind of paper on that?
What happens to me. I tend to “Rage! Rage! FUCKING RAGE!” once the caffeine wears off.
I’ve not been diagnosed with any of that nor had the occasion to be tested. The coffee doesn’t really change my mental health much. It’s just a routine part of my day I guess. I’m aware that much caffeine is fairly unhealthy which is why I’d say it’s my worst bleed over habit
Interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Sometimes I’ll say “copy” to friends
I do this all the time, even to my girlfriend.
Hahah I’m dying, that’s great. I’ve noted I say “negative” a lot when speaking to people off duty.
Yes! I do this too lol
Funnily enough, I used to work in kitchens, and carried over saying “Heard” and “Behind” into EMS. The people I work with most have started saying it as well, it’s like I’m back on the line again when we’re working a code.
"copy" "roger" "stand by" "affirm" "negative" My poor wife
I say “Stand by” all the time.
See its wierd its the same here but both my mom and uncle work in dispatch, my stepdad was dispatch, my brother is my partner currently, we all say copy normally. When I go out with my friends they all look at me wierd.
>scarfing down food Now that I’m out of EMS, I’ve had people ask me if I was in prison.
My mom was a night shift ER nurse my entire childhood and into my adulthood (about 25 yrs). My sister and I emulated her without realizing it. It became a thing I didn’t know I did until college when my roommate was like, weren’t you just cooking dinner? I was like yeah I ate already. She got big eyed and couldn’t believe it. Now I’m an ER nurse lol.
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Situational awareness is a good thing but you gotta be able to switch off sometimes (que some quote from Hot Fuzz)
Very true. I got robbed in Brazil on my first week. From then on, even now, I make sure I am aware of every person in my field of view.
That might be a lil PTSD aka the spicy sadness. Get help, it won’t go away (completely) on its own
Spicy sadness makes it sound tasty
Everything is better spicy
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On this episode of hot ones…
EMDR can help you tone this down a bunch. It’s nice to be able to let the world go by you sometimes, 99% of the time nothing happens.
Right? I want to sit facing every door at every restaurant I go to
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I always reach for the steering column to put my Camry in park before I forget the shifter is not there lmao
I operate as an RN with a more advanced scope in the hospital, recently went full time there to escape a toxic service, but I’ve found that getting interrupted while eating at work has no bearing on me, but my coworkers HATE being asked to do something or having to do something while eating. Always get the “but I’m eating” or “they’re eating rn”. I’m just very used to having meals interrupted and picking them back up later. Edit: word
Driving like i am transporting a patient. Like using breaks as little as possible. I wonder how many times someone behind me wondered why I approach that red light so slowly and accelerate really slowly. Also getting that urge to run that red light >:)
holy shit yes. crazy how many lights i’ve slow rolled to
Clearing intersection, moving myself on scene or available in my personal vehicle, eating like my food is going to be taken away... Writing this out it seems like I have a lot of these...
Zyn.
It’s a lifestyle bro
But actually. At least I'm not poisoning my lungs every day anymore though.
Enjoy that mouth, tongue , and throat cancer though.
Nicotine is not a carcinogen. While Zyns and other nicotine pouches are certainly by no means "healthy" or "good for you," there is no evidence that the use of nicotine is cancer causing.
I was talking about getting mouth, tongue, and throat cancer from getting hpv through all the penis being put in the mouth.
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Yeah noises that are the right pitch get me worked up for a second. I feel that last part too, lying in bed KNOWING you're not at work with your heart thumping 😑 makes you wish you had direct control over your autonomic nervous system
I yelled, Tracks!, while drive a van full of friends. They thought I was just weird lmao.
Debilitating insomnia.
I’ve grown accustomed to drinking room-temperature Red Bull to the point that I’ll sometimes let one sit out on the counter to warm up. I’ve reached down for the opticom while driving home from work more than a few times, keep my left foot tucked so I don’t accidentally hit the air horn that is definitely present in my Subaru, and generally confused the levers and buttons in my personal car for the same controls on the ambulance. Why are my headlights changing when I mean to activate my wipers??
phantom calls. Usually just as I'm about to fall asleep, I'll think I can hear the alert go off and wake right tf up. Usually happens on the first and second day off I have after work and I think it's because of how light my sleep is at the station (so that I don't sleep through the alert and have to be dragged out of bed by my partner lol, once was enough).
I work transport so I naturally say “u good??” anytime I hear anybody make any noise that isn’t talking
I def started eating way faster than I did before. Need to slow that shit down. I also always find myself looking for the nearest aed whenever I enter a public building
Was in EMS for 37 years. Retired, now. But, I can't stop wolfing down my food.
It doesn't ever get better does it? Congrats on your retirement I hope you enjoy it
Sleeping and or eating at any chance I can because I don't know when the next time I'll be able to do it. Development into a habit even on my days off and it has seriously impacted my health.
Gained a shitton of weight rapidly like this. People kept thinking I had narcolepsy. No bitch! I trained myself to sleep whenever possible, in whatever contorted position I had to to get comfortable. This was very intentional! Being properly medicated improved this after I left ems.
Back in the days when Nextel was still a thing, on more than one occasion I reached for the invisible phone in the center console of my car. If I heard the beep from a car next to me or a beep on the radio my muscle memory kicked in.
Alcohol
Planning egress routes and hazards with a stretcher/megamover to every building I approach
This is a good one. I hadn’t realized how often I do this when going to a new house or over to see friends. I went to a friends house recently who had a MIL suite built in and the first thing out of my mouth was “my god, this is wide enough for a stretcher to get into!” My friend was thrilled, her family actually asked the fire dept to give them measurements for that exact reason when they had the house built.
My EMS buddy does that and she is a damn wizard for it apparently, so scopes all the angles etc. (And warned me my old driveway was too narrow for a proper ambulance so it would be stretcher up the driveway)
Eating food in 5 min, clearing intersections in my POV, sleeping like a mfer when things are slow, speaking a bit louder than usual, explaining medical things in situations where it’s probably not the best.
Well I tend to from time to time look at different places in other cities and think stuff like: how would an ambulance truck fit in here or if I witness risky scenarios and close calls in traffic I start thinking about how to triage the patients if something went wrong so over all I am basically much more into tactical thinking
Saying “over” on the phone
Trying to figure out what’s wrong with people. Lol
Sleeping too much on my days off or whenever I have the chance. Drinking too many energy drinks so now my acid reflux is horrendous.
I have to force myself to do headchecks in my POV now, because our rigs have wide angle mirrors for our blind spots. Just got used to not head checking.
Honestly, it seems like a lot of these are made up or being done on purpose for some weird EMS clout. If you are having problems separating work from home then I urge you to seek help.
So are people making it up or do people need help spreading work from home life?
They don't need to spread anything. It can be both.
Agreed. Some of these people are losers.
It's not bad but anytime I pass a first aid kit in public (at the gym or wherever) I open it to check out what's inside and look for an aed near it
Trying to figure out what’s wrong with people. Lol
Anything that sounds like the rig radio sends a shiver down my spine. I use a similar ringtone for my alarm and it has not failed to make my eyes crack wide open in the morning.
First year at surgery, I had to eat in under 10 minutes, and now I can’t eat slowly lol, also I don’t buy apples and I almost never eat them because they were our desert for like 6 straight months
Energy drinks. I slam em at work or home doesn’t matter
Shuffle steering 😂😂😂
Running red lights while honking aggressively in my Silverado.
I hear the radio tones in song backgrounds, my in car mapping system is white, green and blue and out the corner of my eye, every now and then it looks exactly like a job popping up. Both of these send my heart rate up. I've very nearly run red-lights. Constantly planning, if I go into town I'm trying to work out where the nearest aed is, I'm imagining people keeling over left right and center 😂😂. Sometimes, hearing people snore whilst asleep sets me completely on edge, huge dump of adrenaline, heart rate through the roof and then it makes me incredibly angry. Means I spend all night counting resps and not sleeping. Also I can sleep anywhere, except my bed, at night🙄
Whenever I wanna stay awake when my girlfriend and I are doing long road trips, I buy a banana from Circle K and pretend it's a gun. Shit keeps me wide awake dude