The First 6 months as an Ambulance Paramedic

I received a comment from keeper of the chocolates and thought i'd reply with this post...

I quote her comment here...

"hi there adrian :) if you ever come back to this blog would you mind emailing or contacting me? my husband has decided just recently to become a paramedic and i would love to get more info on this career choice for our family and all that it involves. we have 4 kids, and i am just wondering what it will be like with him working the crazy nights/weekends and such :)

thanks for any input that you have!"

hi there "keeper of the chocolates" (cool name btw :-)

I will email you, but post a few comments here.

Not sure how the ambulance system works over there in the US, so can only refer to the service in Oz.

Firstly, its a GREAT job! Its one of those rare vocations where variety is the norm.
You literally just don't know what your next call is going to be.

In regards to what effects on your family are...

Unless you actually do the work, you just don't know what your emotions are going to be or more importantly, how you will cope with these emotions.

Its important to have someone to talk to when about your work.

Some people talk to their work partner or friends or Wives/Husbands, etc.

In my case, I talked to my Wife. She was my rock. In the beginning, I had a lot of self doubts about my chosen career. She just listened and steered me in the right direction without actually saying anything.

My first 6 - 12 months were hard. It was fun, exciting, emotionally draining and hard.

I've gone off topic a bit..sorry.

When I started I had 2 children (young) and worked a 4 on 4 off roster. That is 2 day shifts, then 2 night shifts followed by 4 days off.

The night shifts were the hardest for my Wife. It took a little while for her to get used to me not being there at night.

Then when I came off the night shift, she would try to keep the kids quiet during the day so I could sleep.

It was hard to organize outings, etc for the weekend as for some reason, I always seemed to be working when there was something really exciting that came up to do on the weekend!

Oh, and never, ever, ever organise something after your day shift.
You will ALWAYS have a shift extension on the day that need to get home on time!
Don't know why that happens, but it does.
If you do have something planned, don't tell anyone!

The good things are that you are often able to go to your kids school days (sports, etc).

Hope this helps.

Let me know if there is anything more you want to know.

As a side note, my days of working on the minesite are coming to a close...I'll be going back to the city and working on the Ambulance again.

Cheers all

Adrian