Applying for EMT jobs after once fallen asleep at the wheel (personal vehicle)

ReeNadeau

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I moved to a new State recently and would absolutely love to re-join EMS. However, about 1.5 years ago I had my license suspended after having fallen asleep at the wheel. I feel like I can make a strong case - I was working four part-time jobs in addition to attending school full-time with an intense major of biochemistry. The night before my accident I had travelled 3 hrs to attend an important family event, and then had to go to work at 4 AM the next morning after 3 hrs of sleep. After seeing a cardiologist and neurologist to verify that my accident was just from exhaustion and not something medical (such as a seizure disorder), I got my license back in one month.

I also have one at-fault accident on my record, but no reckless driving or anything else super serious. A speeding ticket, I think.

I now have my degree and a stable work-life balance, so falling asleep at the wheel shouldn't be a risk. Is there a reasonable chance that an ambulance will still hire me? How can I boost my chances? What if I took an ambulance driving course? If not, what other jobs might an EMT license qualify me for? I really want to stay in the field
 

MMiz

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What was suspended? Driver's license? EMT license? Both?
 

MMiz

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I think your biggest challenge will be that the incident was relatively recently.

I'd apply to one and find out. See what they say.

If I had an EMT cert with a background in biochemistry I'd be looking for ER Tech jobs.

Good luck!
 

DrParasite

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Soooooooo what was your license suspended for? a medical condition? meaning, they thought you had a seizure (which is grounds for a suspended license), and didn't want you driving until you were medically cleared? or did you fall asleep at the wheel, crash, and bad stuff happened?

I believe the question will depend on what your drivers abstract says was the reason for the nearly 2 year suspension.
 
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ReeNadeau

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Soooooooo what was your license suspended for? a medical condition? meaning, they thought you had a seizure (which is grounds for a suspended license), and didn't want you driving until you were medically cleared? or did you fall asleep at the wheel, crash, and bad stuff happened?

I believe the question will depend on what your drivers abstract says was the reason for the nearly 2 year suspension.
Driver's license was suspended for one month because I had only fallen asleep. I was medically cleared - no seizure or cardiac disorder. The only damage was that to my personal vehicle - no other vehicles, people, or people's property/possessions. Thank god.
 

CarSevenFour

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Well, there was a time I actually refused to go on a traffic accident call. It was late at night and we had been running, literally for days in the storms, heavy rain, cold, with little or no respite. It was at the back end of a 96-hour shift in the days where you'd go on duty and not really know when you would be going off duty, they were devilishly long 24 hour shifts strung out over several days as the norm. I had just about enough of the constant calls dispatch was sending us on. They were doing their job, it was just the overwhelming fatigue that was getting to us. I was totally spent, my partner on that night was reduced to a 1,000-yard red-eyed stare and I was beginning to hallucinate at the wheel, trying to keep my eyes open and falling asleep then awakening with a jerk, realizing I'm still driving, on the way back to the station after standing in the rain at a traffic fatality, waiting for the divers to bring the victim up before the engine company captain would release us. Everyone was hoping for a miracle to occur, an air pocket where the driver was miraculously saved by an air bubble inside the vehicle lying nose down in deep water. Didn't happen, we were finally cleared and barely made it back to quarters awake. A half-hour later the phone rings. We simply cannot respond and now I'm coming down with a fever on top of everything. Boy, did we take a hit for refusing the call, the guys acted like I was less than a man and I eventually quit. They call it "drowsy driving" and a company I worked for later allowed crews to refuse calls if they felt like they were a danger on the road. A dead ambulance man doesn't help anyone, but, of course, the program was abused by lazy crews who would prefer not transporting a PT from the Puget Sound coast, clear across the state to the only bed available for psych in Spokane. It happened a lot, those long runs, down to Seattle and across Washington State and most of us were up for it. It was good that the industry was changing its mindset regarding drowsy driving. I guess your takeaway was to realize you have to take the responsibility to know when you should not be behind the wheel. Your overwork, facing a long drive ahead, no family gathering would be worth the danger in my mind. The next gathering could just have easily been your funeral. Give yourself credit for making a bad judgment call, most likely compounded by fatigue, and learning from it. It sounds like you learned a valuable lesson and it takes some amount of courage to face up to that and tell it in a public forum. That's the kind of person I'd gladly call my partner.
 

DrParasite

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Driver's license was suspended for one month because I had only fallen asleep. I was medically cleared - no seizure or cardiac disorder. The only damage was that to my personal vehicle - no other vehicles, people, or people's property/possessions. Thank god.
so your license was suspended due to a potential medical condition, and promptly restored once you were cleared by a doctor? I wouldn't worry about it. It's not like it was suspended due to a violation. in fact, I wouldn't even go into the details about what happen; after all, your medical history is your business, and no one else's, provided you were cleared by a physician.

if you want to be proactive, request a copy of your driver's abstract from the DMV, so you know what it says. This way you can see if you have any abnormalities on it, or anything that you would consider worrisome. But overall, I wouldn't stress it one bit.
 

ffemt8978

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If I have to remove any more posts from this thread for being inflammatory, some people are going to be placed on forum quarantine.
 
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