ALS Volunteer Cars

[explcdt8]

In my county we have two volunteer ambulances which are ALS and we are getting a third in January. This is in addition to two cities who contract with private providers at the ALS level.

Are volunteer ALS companies a common thing, or are they unusual?

[MDEMT280]

I can't speak for the entire country, but volunteer ALS-capable transport units are quite common in the Baltimore metro area. I've also seen them elsewhere in the country.

However, notice I said ALS-capable. Just because a unit can run with an ALS crew doesn't always mean staffing allows it. Many times units are running with a BLS crew instead.

Paramedic training is intensive and time-consuming, and keeping that licensure/certification also takes a lot of continuing education. I'm seeing fewer and fewer volunteer ALS providers in general, at least in my neck of the woods, and the vast majority of the volunteer ALS providers I know/know of are also paid ALS providers in another agency. They keep their certs up to date through work, but give back to the community as a volunteer. They just wouldn't be able to keep up if they had to do all of that extra training on a volunteer and out-of-pocket basis.

[explcdt8]

Thanks. I thought it was somewhat unusual, but I guess not. I know one of our corps has an ALS bus. The other, I believe, has an ALS fly car and goes "medic aboard" a BLS bus.

[noelchabanel]

We have paramedics on the two volunteer/call squads I serve on. One only has one of them and thus has somewhat limited stuff to work with, but the other has several, with 24 hour coverage...although we have per-diems on during the day because the rest of us have jobs. We have two trucks that have enough redundancy that they can each carry two ALS Pts complete with all the drugs, CPAP, and an assortment of advanced airways which I catalogue weekly, but at my lowly level, never get to use :D And EMT Intermediates (if you count that as ALS) are all over the place here.

[explcdt8]

No, no EMT-I's here, upstate, but not in the Hudson Valley, at least in my part of it. We have:

Civilian First Aiders (Community First Aid and CPR)(Not affiliated with any emergency service)
Ambulance Corps Members (CPR for Professional Rescuer/Healthcare Provider, AED, Standard First Aid)
Certified First Responders (Mostly Police and Firefighters, a few Ambulance members)
EMT-B riding on a BLS bus
EMT-B riding on an ALS bus
Paramedic
Flight Paramedic/Nurse (Often the flight RN's are also Paramedics so they can use protocols and not have to call the MD for everything like an RN would.)

[Stormrage]

There are pretty much no volunteer ALS agencies where I am in Central NY. I only know of one agency for sure that does volunteer ALS, but they run fly cars instead of full ambulances.

[explcdt8]

There are pretty much no volunteer ALS agencies where I am in Central NY. I only know of one agency for sure that does volunteer ALS, but they run fly cars instead of full ambulances.

Do they have full EMT-P's or EMT-I or EMT-CC's. I think they are also called I/85 and I/99.

[Drummadude]

My city doesn't have volunteer FD/ambulances nor private. It's all the paid fire department's job. Each house has an ambulance, with EMT-B up to Paramedic licensed FF's.

[Stormrage]

Do they have full EMT-P's or EMT-I or EMT-CC's. I think they are also called I/85 and I/99.

My buddy who rides with them is an EMT-P, but I am not sure what all the others they have are.