We work a 24 hour a day shift, 48 in a row for the tour, and with overtime it could be 72. We get paid for the whole 24 but the system is designed so that you are supposed to get some sleep. It's just a safety issue.
It seems that our new 'typical' tour at my station is to have limited calls during the day and be up running calls all night.
I'm not happy about this.
Our days are spent training, doing inspections, studying, cleaning, going to classes, etc. We aren't napping and watching TV all day (at least the majority of us aren't) so being up all night means limited to no sleep in that full 24 to 48 hour time period.
Here's a look at how it's been going lately. This is a rundown of my last couple of tours.
The first day started with a call right out of the chute at 08:12. Then we had a break and got our reports done, exercised, ate lunch and trained on some rescue equipment. In the afternoon we had made our dinner plan and were all set to go to the store and shop. I drove us to the store and we were just walking in when we got a call for a four vehicle accident at an intersection in the neighboring district. Oh well. It was now 17:46 as we responded to the crash. After dealing with a couple patients and cleaning up we were released. We were really pushing the time for getting our shopping and cooking done at a reasonable hour but we thought we would try it. We headed back to the store but got called to an EMS on the way - it is now 18:17. OK. So, we diverted over to the medical. After that it was definitely too late to shop and cook, so, we stopped off and picked up a couple of pizzas to bring back to the station. I got to sleep sometime around 23:00 that night and was awoken at 01:34 for one of our regulars who falls out of her chair and can't get up. That's an easy call that doesn't take too long. At least, it wouldn't if she and her husband didn't chain smoke every day of their lives. We literally have to put our clothes in the wash and take a shower after going in that house because we reek of cigarette smoke. The shower wakes me up and makes it very tough to go back to sleep.
The calls on the second day occurred at 13:15, 18:28, 19:52, 20:55 (a lot of physical work on that one), 22:04, 23:16 (our smoke house lady from the day before), and 02:16. I got up at 07:00 and was more than ready to go home at 08:00.
My very next tour started on Easter Sunday. I had overtime scheduled for Tuesday so I was on a 72 hour tour this time.
We had an overtime captain for Easter and the day was slow and quiet. It was a holiday schedule so, I caught up on my computer based training and my bimonthly EMS quiz, exercised, and basically took it easy. The calls started at 22:10 so I didn't get to sleep until between 23:00 and 24:00. Then we had calls at 01:44, 04:36, and 06:06. Just spaced out evenly enough to never be able to get back to sleep in between and no time left to go back to bed in the morning before it was time to start the second shift.
The second shift was call free all day which meant we were doomed to be running at night again. We got our first call at 22:30 and I can't even remember what it was for. After that we actually got away with sleeping until 04:00 when we caught a car fire in one of our residential neighborhoods. This car was really tough to get into and cut the battery cables and secure it properly, so we were on scene for awhile. We got back and I took a shower, packed up all my stuff, ate a little and got ready to go to my overtime station as soon as my relief arrived.
I am writing this from the overtime station and we have already run two freeway accidents and got our dinner shopping done before noon. Maybe that is a good sign. I could really use some sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment