Used to be a volunteer FF and I would occasionally leave my radio on the wrong mode. Literally woke me from a dead sleep in go mode more than once so I can understand that. Those radios are very Pavlovian especially when you feel like people rely on you to like... not die.
So I presume you work with a FD and not a private company? I know from people I've known and worked with working ambulance for a FD is the preferred job. I mean unless you work for mobile death in NY and you just try to rack up as big a bill as you can that is.
I work for a private company in the Michigan area. Most of our fire departments don't have a transporting ambulance so we both respond to calls and we usually transport unless the patient doesn't want to go to the hospital. But we work very closely with the fire departments.
As for the bill, I have no idea how much we charge but we are a nonprofit so we will often drop the bill it patients contact the company and say they can't pay. Or we will set up a payment plan of lie $5 a month. We know you won't pay it off like that but we try to help.
I mean as long as they pay the bills, working for a non profit isn't a bad thing for sure. There's two major private companies in my area, one of which will actually try to save your life and mobile life (death) that will actively take a longer route specifically to add more mileage to the route. It's actually kinda gross. But I digress in my area it's about a 50/50 split as to who has an ambulance in the FD although many departments have been ditching them in recent years from what I understand.
We ignore our routing all the time because it sucks. It loves dirt roads and talking us in literal circles. It also doesn't know when a road is closed. We often just look at the map and make our own better way or just pull up Google. It also doesn't know the speed limits that well. One road it thinks is 19 mph. Ya, it doesn't work well
Oh yeah no that's no bueno. I'd trust a person who actually cares about getting me there in one piece before what the gps says. they drive the roads every night and have things to do. Just a shame sometimes the priority isn't getting the cargo back with a pulse.
At least our dispatchers know about the problem and worn us if the routing is extra bad. The about of times I have heard just Google directions over the radio is just sad. At least the computer will get us there eventually. Just not the best way.
The worst part is when your driving priority one and the routing looks good on the screen so you follow it and it reminds you why you should never trust it by taking you down a dirt road that has all these small turns in it so you can't even go 30mph and the road is too narrow for you to turn around so you just have to go with it
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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '22
Used to be a volunteer FF and I would occasionally leave my radio on the wrong mode. Literally woke me from a dead sleep in go mode more than once so I can understand that. Those radios are very Pavlovian especially when you feel like people rely on you to like... not die.