coolparamedic

1 1/2 hours good road conditions, that doesn't include patient requests. The Nearest cath lab is 80 miles away. Nearest Level 1 trauma facility is 120 miles. Nearest helicopter is 45 mins away from the hospital, fixed wing won't land at our airport.

At my service, every two weeks we sign up for call. The shifts are 0900-2100 & 2100-0900. I work for an ALS service where the paramedics stay at the station. The emt's stay at home if their total time of page to enroute is 5 min or less on the paramedic unit. If you are on second call (the 2nd out ambulane staffed with an EMT-I and you don't have to be in uniform but you still have to be able to get to the station in 5 mins in the event of a second call. (Keep in mind the service does 2 calls a day)

I know of a medic that had another medic use the EZ IO on him. I guess it didn't hurt that bad but they were in a world of hurt when the MPD found out. We are supposed to be getting them here pretty soon. We do carry the Fast 1 and the BIG. I've seen the fast 1 used twice once with success. The one that didn't work, it was a code and the guy had previously had his chest opened from a CABG.