In practice? None. My company is very tight with OT, to the point that they'll leave trucks empty if there's no part-timers or per diems to take it. My only chance at getting OT is if I get held over.
Not one minute. I've had them send me home when I hit 40, even leaving a medic unit unstaffed. It's a little obnoxious, because it's only because I'm classified as part time. Full timers get unlimited overtime. /footstompingtantrum
On the fire side, we might get one 24hr shift every 2-3months. In EMS you work 24/72, but can typically work 24/24 if you've got the balls and energy drinks to do it.
We have an "18 hour rule" in place, so if you're held over you can only work half of the next shift. There needs to be 6 hours of down time in between shifts. However, we do have plenty of OT shifts available for medics on off days. We use Telestaff to assign them.
For us if you work 12 hours shifts then you can not go more then 36 straight. If you work 24 hour shifts then no more then 48 straight. But other then that rule it's as much OT as you can get. Normally people will try to pick up shifts on the same day making it so they get Double Time pay for the whole second shift.
We can't work more than 24 hours without and 8 hour break. However, I've been scheduled to work a 13 and 10 with 2 hours off between (which was spent on the clock stocking, as per night crew duties), so I'm not sure if the overtime rules are actually enforced. Operations can pull you if you look tired, but beyond that you can pull as much OT as you want so long as you can stand it. An extra 10-12 a week is fairly normal.
Way back when... I worked with people that worked 108+ (and even up into the 120's) per week when we were short-staffed for the call volume. I once worked 4.5 days straight with 5 different partners on the same ambulance. Keeping the unit stocked was incredibly easy... I knew exactly what we'd used the entire day.
That was NOT a record for that company though. I think the record was 6.5 days... straight. Amazingly enough, no crashes or adverse patient events during those days occurred.
At my company full time is 72 hours a week. We can only pick up extra hours to a max of 96 hours a week. In addition, we are only aloud to work maximum of 48 hours in a row.
Where I work the cap is at 64 hours per week, but I've heard stories of some pulling well more than that. We're pretty busy, so if the need is there and shifts need filled, the opportunity certainly exists.
my old company I worked almost 3 weeks straight with no time off, I was the only medic at the time. for afew shifts I had an ambulance in the driveway and a partner on couch watching tv so I could shower, change and sleep better
Now we are limited to 36 hrs with 5 hr break, UNLESS testing/coverage requires more hours. Worked 213 hrs a couple of pay checks ago (2 weeks)