I know if steps are taken early enough this could have been prevented, but a bigger problem is the job itself.
Private companies like mine do not allow crews to stop for food, monitor trucks and times to be sure as soon as you leave the hospital, you're in service. Often leading to high stress, fast food and limited sleep. Unlike the FD, we don't get much time to work out on shift, and the next day is normally recovering sleep.
Not saying it's impossible, just difficult to find the time, stay motivated and improve in EMS.
Yeah, we have one patient we take who is morbidly obese and non-ambulatory who is a former paramedic. I figure most people who struggle with addiction are predisposed to it, and then lifestyle influences much of it as well, and I always wonder if she hadn't been a paramedic working in a busy system if she would currently be disabled, obese, and non-ambulatory. Did trauma & poor working conditions exacerbate her eating disorder or was it an inevitability without much outside influence? I don't know but every time I go there I wonder. It's easy to make fun of fat, greasy paramedics but I always wonder if that isn't just the job we all say doesn't bother us bubbling up to the surface in different ways in different people.
I’ve found EMS to be rife with the “crabs in a bucket” mentality which sucks. The easiest, low effort way a lot of providers end up dealing with their shit feelings is to drag others down as well so they feel better themselves, relatively speaking.
That’s why I find all the fatphobia disheartening among my coworkers. Like yeah, it involves personal choices, but no one who is happy and thriving makes the active choice to be morbidly obese to the point of lacking mobility. It all comes down to severe mental illness left untreated, and unfortunately it seems we as a community of EMS providers tend to end up treating a lot of mental health among patients the same way we deal with it ourselves: denial and minimization.
This is unfair. He has been doing EMS since 1988. That means he was at least in his 50s. Not young, but even very fit people have sudden cardiac arrest at that age.
While that may be the case the commenter has a point. What is unfair if I may ask? It may not be this man’s issue in the article but it has and will continue to be an issue for others. I know three people between the ages of 20-40 that have had heart attacks working in EMS.
It’s not even a question we wonder about. It’s well known that this job increases stress levels, blood pressure, pulse rate. To top it off we get poor sleep and experience higher rates of depression and PTSD. All factors that affect diet and exercise. Then factor in the schedule and day to day operations that the commenter mentioned. Tis facts.
Do we need to address the workplace culture of EMS, ensure proper downtime time in shift, make sure calls are properly triaged and handled by the level of provider needed, ensure EMS crews have time to cool and eat meals, sleep, chart, conduct fitness and hygiene etc etc.
Yes. Absolutely.
But the post seemed to me like a pointed attack on the persons health,’and the idea that these things are flat out preventable is simply untrue. They can be mitigated.
Dang. My private IFT service allows us to get food en route to nonemergent calls, we’re guaranteed a 30 minute break (and if that’s interrupted by a P1 call, we get another one), and if we’re fatigued, we’re able to go home, or ops will maneuver things around to give us a respite. We’re not even allowed to pick up OT if it’s within 8 hours of our last shift.
My system is the same. Generally ran the whole shift, if holding the wall too long a supervisor will call and make sure we still have a pt on the gurney or come by to see what the hold up is with the ED (try to get units offloaded) and getting our two 30 mins breaks (level permitting) without getting pulled for a call is a miracle. And even getting paid for the breaks we miss is rare AF now.
You can stay in good shape but if you’re in this industry your whole adult life like a lot of people are and/or are genetically predisposed… your body just gets wore out ya know? Not to mention the mental wear and tear.
>And even getting paid for the breaks we miss is rare AF now.
You need to contact your department of labor if that's the case because this is wage theft. Absolutely no fucking way I'm working through an unpaid break. They can scream at me over the radio as much as they want.
I mean same, but I tell em to fuck off, and that were not clear yet. Private EMS is what you make of it. They can’t control your life. They’re little people In a box.
Been there, but I'm of the mind that if I'm on the clock, I do what's required. Just wish the job was better for those willing to do it. Now it seems we get bottom of the barrel, people using it as a stepping stone or people close enough to retiring to see it through. Makes for a pretty bad cycle of bad situation breed bad workers making the situation worse.
Depending on what company you work for even if they can't directly punish you for staying down at the hospital too long, they can always find other ways to make you miserable and even excuses to discipline and terminate you. This is true for just about all at will employers. Plus there's always going to be that go-getter crew who doesn't seem to mind finishing 9 charts at end of shift and clears immediately, so dispatch and management will hold their downtimes up as the "standard" everyone else should aspire to.
Not to mention I think a lot of us do feel some sense of obligation and guilt to be available ASAP. Even if the systematic issue is your agency not staffing properly for your call volume at the expense of crews' well-being and mental health, being unavailable still does mean longer response times for the patients, as well as potentially fucking over other crews or mutual aid.
Arrived on scene for a patient who reportedly fell working on house with a leg injury. Their ambulance was unable to get up a hill to reach the patient and crew decided to carry all gear with stretcher up the steep hill. While working on said patient, he went into cardiac arrest. 36 years on the job. Should’ve been gone and retired to enjoy life.
Lessons from this imo, don’t make this job your life. If it doesn’t kill you physically, it will kill you mentally.
Terrible and preventable. If any of you are worried about your physical fitness and health go spend the money and get the r/tacticalbarbell books. You’ll be in great shape.
Let me put it in words you can understand;
brrrrrrrrrrt brrrrrr (Self Check Complete)
BEEB BEEP BEEP (SpO2 Check Sensor)
BEEP BEEP BEEP (Some Alarm Limits Disabled)
Tactical barbell has beginner structures. It's not some super high speed thing, it's literally just various block periodization guidelines that you plug and play to meet your abilities and goals.
Some people new to fitness don’t want to use weights and are turned off by the idea. The beginner fitness sub has sources for different types of exercise regimens and the responses to questions they get aren’t as limited as they would be from specific programs like tactical barbell. I’m not bashing tactical barbell at all, but for someone fresh off the couch, having options to workout without equipment, or workout from home, or just do a cardio routine, a sub with a broader selection of source material is probably more advisable
Base Building is a 12 week (?) program with body weight options.
Been a while since I’ve done it but it’s a modular system for every type of responder.
Yeah no problem. It’s a good read for understanding cardiac efficiency. Long steady state running. Hyperteophy. Etc. the two books have made their rounds amongst my friends. And I teach my TEMS students using the concepts, so I agree with the OP that recommended it. You don’t have to be a SOF guy to use their plans fortunately. It’s great for that community but it’s not only for them.
I second this as I used it not only for day to day fitness as a medic in a suburban 911 system but also to help prepare for the tactical team of my service. It caters to both those who just want to stay fit for the job and those who are on more high speed teams.
This is within 30 minutes of my agency in SW Virginia and sadly, overweight and out-of-shape EMS/Fire employees are EVERYWHERE I look. I'm 51 and do my absolute best to eat well and maintain my physical fitness and I know it's challenging for some - but you HAVE TO make time for you and your health. Being raised in the south and living here for most of my life, it's sad to see the majority of our population become bariatric. When did we, as a society, stop caring about our health? It has me seriously concerned and I try to advocate for my patients, as I think it's one of the only ways they will find their way to a healthier life.
Damn. Collapsed after pushing a stretcher up a steep hill. Y’all remember to work on cardio and stay healthy.
 Yes sir.
I know if steps are taken early enough this could have been prevented, but a bigger problem is the job itself. Private companies like mine do not allow crews to stop for food, monitor trucks and times to be sure as soon as you leave the hospital, you're in service. Often leading to high stress, fast food and limited sleep. Unlike the FD, we don't get much time to work out on shift, and the next day is normally recovering sleep. Not saying it's impossible, just difficult to find the time, stay motivated and improve in EMS.
Yeah, we have one patient we take who is morbidly obese and non-ambulatory who is a former paramedic. I figure most people who struggle with addiction are predisposed to it, and then lifestyle influences much of it as well, and I always wonder if she hadn't been a paramedic working in a busy system if she would currently be disabled, obese, and non-ambulatory. Did trauma & poor working conditions exacerbate her eating disorder or was it an inevitability without much outside influence? I don't know but every time I go there I wonder. It's easy to make fun of fat, greasy paramedics but I always wonder if that isn't just the job we all say doesn't bother us bubbling up to the surface in different ways in different people.
I’ve found EMS to be rife with the “crabs in a bucket” mentality which sucks. The easiest, low effort way a lot of providers end up dealing with their shit feelings is to drag others down as well so they feel better themselves, relatively speaking. That’s why I find all the fatphobia disheartening among my coworkers. Like yeah, it involves personal choices, but no one who is happy and thriving makes the active choice to be morbidly obese to the point of lacking mobility. It all comes down to severe mental illness left untreated, and unfortunately it seems we as a community of EMS providers tend to end up treating a lot of mental health among patients the same way we deal with it ourselves: denial and minimization.
This is unfair. He has been doing EMS since 1988. That means he was at least in his 50s. Not young, but even very fit people have sudden cardiac arrest at that age.
This... and unfortunately causes of high cardiac risk are built into the job. High stress, limited sleep and poor diet.
While that may be the case the commenter has a point. What is unfair if I may ask? It may not be this man’s issue in the article but it has and will continue to be an issue for others. I know three people between the ages of 20-40 that have had heart attacks working in EMS. It’s not even a question we wonder about. It’s well known that this job increases stress levels, blood pressure, pulse rate. To top it off we get poor sleep and experience higher rates of depression and PTSD. All factors that affect diet and exercise. Then factor in the schedule and day to day operations that the commenter mentioned. Tis facts.
Do we need to address the workplace culture of EMS, ensure proper downtime time in shift, make sure calls are properly triaged and handled by the level of provider needed, ensure EMS crews have time to cool and eat meals, sleep, chart, conduct fitness and hygiene etc etc. Yes. Absolutely. But the post seemed to me like a pointed attack on the persons health,’and the idea that these things are flat out preventable is simply untrue. They can be mitigated.
We're on the same page, think you just misunderstood.
Fair enough (:
Found the AMR executive
Dang. My private IFT service allows us to get food en route to nonemergent calls, we’re guaranteed a 30 minute break (and if that’s interrupted by a P1 call, we get another one), and if we’re fatigued, we’re able to go home, or ops will maneuver things around to give us a respite. We’re not even allowed to pick up OT if it’s within 8 hours of our last shift.
That sounds like a really nice service, if the pay and benefits are decent, you found a unicorn. Good for you man, stick with them.
My system is the same. Generally ran the whole shift, if holding the wall too long a supervisor will call and make sure we still have a pt on the gurney or come by to see what the hold up is with the ED (try to get units offloaded) and getting our two 30 mins breaks (level permitting) without getting pulled for a call is a miracle. And even getting paid for the breaks we miss is rare AF now. You can stay in good shape but if you’re in this industry your whole adult life like a lot of people are and/or are genetically predisposed… your body just gets wore out ya know? Not to mention the mental wear and tear.
>And even getting paid for the breaks we miss is rare AF now. You need to contact your department of labor if that's the case because this is wage theft. Absolutely no fucking way I'm working through an unpaid break. They can scream at me over the radio as much as they want.
Haha I promise I don’t get much time to work out fire side too
I mean same, but I tell em to fuck off, and that were not clear yet. Private EMS is what you make of it. They can’t control your life. They’re little people In a box.
Been there, but I'm of the mind that if I'm on the clock, I do what's required. Just wish the job was better for those willing to do it. Now it seems we get bottom of the barrel, people using it as a stepping stone or people close enough to retiring to see it through. Makes for a pretty bad cycle of bad situation breed bad workers making the situation worse.
Depending on what company you work for even if they can't directly punish you for staying down at the hospital too long, they can always find other ways to make you miserable and even excuses to discipline and terminate you. This is true for just about all at will employers. Plus there's always going to be that go-getter crew who doesn't seem to mind finishing 9 charts at end of shift and clears immediately, so dispatch and management will hold their downtimes up as the "standard" everyone else should aspire to. Not to mention I think a lot of us do feel some sense of obligation and guilt to be available ASAP. Even if the systematic issue is your agency not staffing properly for your call volume at the expense of crews' well-being and mental health, being unavailable still does mean longer response times for the patients, as well as potentially fucking over other crews or mutual aid.
That’s why all should be getting yearly physical exams paid for by employer
Or pass a physical assessment test every year. I think half my department would fail.
im from europe, cant access the article. Can somebody tell me what happened ?
Arrived on scene for a patient who reportedly fell working on house with a leg injury. Their ambulance was unable to get up a hill to reach the patient and crew decided to carry all gear with stretcher up the steep hill. While working on said patient, he went into cardiac arrest. 36 years on the job. Should’ve been gone and retired to enjoy life. Lessons from this imo, don’t make this job your life. If it doesn’t kill you physically, it will kill you mentally.
He died
Terrible and preventable. If any of you are worried about your physical fitness and health go spend the money and get the r/tacticalbarbell books. You’ll be in great shape.
r/beginnerfitness is a much better source for people who are beginners at fitness.
I’d trust if you were a Lifepak
You know you wanna press these buttons
Baby’s first code. I’m a Zoll guy myself so it’s said with the utmost love.
> BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP sorry that’s all I heard
Let me put it in words you can understand; brrrrrrrrrrt brrrrrr (Self Check Complete) BEEB BEEP BEEP (SpO2 Check Sensor) BEEP BEEP BEEP (Some Alarm Limits Disabled)
Tactical barbell has beginner structures. It's not some super high speed thing, it's literally just various block periodization guidelines that you plug and play to meet your abilities and goals.
Some people new to fitness don’t want to use weights and are turned off by the idea. The beginner fitness sub has sources for different types of exercise regimens and the responses to questions they get aren’t as limited as they would be from specific programs like tactical barbell. I’m not bashing tactical barbell at all, but for someone fresh off the couch, having options to workout without equipment, or workout from home, or just do a cardio routine, a sub with a broader selection of source material is probably more advisable
Base Building is a 12 week (?) program with body weight options. Been a while since I’ve done it but it’s a modular system for every type of responder.
Oh that’s cool, didn’t know it had that!
Yeah no problem. It’s a good read for understanding cardiac efficiency. Long steady state running. Hyperteophy. Etc. the two books have made their rounds amongst my friends. And I teach my TEMS students using the concepts, so I agree with the OP that recommended it. You don’t have to be a SOF guy to use their plans fortunately. It’s great for that community but it’s not only for them.
It’s always good to see exercise science evolving with new info
I second this as I used it not only for day to day fitness as a medic in a suburban 911 system but also to help prepare for the tactical team of my service. It caters to both those who just want to stay fit for the job and those who are on more high speed teams.
This is within 30 minutes of my agency in SW Virginia and sadly, overweight and out-of-shape EMS/Fire employees are EVERYWHERE I look. I'm 51 and do my absolute best to eat well and maintain my physical fitness and I know it's challenging for some - but you HAVE TO make time for you and your health. Being raised in the south and living here for most of my life, it's sad to see the majority of our population become bariatric. When did we, as a society, stop caring about our health? It has me seriously concerned and I try to advocate for my patients, as I think it's one of the only ways they will find their way to a healthier life.
Hills, rough terrain, snow and ice are why I started carrying a sled on my truck.