We critique the calls, and we learn from them. If a call was really awful, we have a debriefing team available to us which includes a mental health professional. The average career life for a paramedic is four years in a busy system and eight years in a regular system. I've been doing it for 20 years and still love it. Calls for the East Fork paramedics has been increasing by about 200 per year during the past five years.
Vehicles are safer now, with air bags and seat belt compliance.
There's not nearly as many fatal accidents since Highway 395 was expanded to four lanes about 10 years ago. There also seems to be a decrease in DUI-related accidents, which I feel is due to increased police patrol and DUI awareness programs. The average time it takes to complete a run varies according to the type. The average time spent by paramedics on a fire call is one hour. Fire call, you say.