Wilderness EMS opportunities, where are they?

Mmedic

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Hi EMS providers,

I was looking for job opportunities in the wilderness (i.e. expeditions, camping, etc.), however most of them seem to be just volunteer work. Not to downplay volunteering but I do have bills to pay and all... So is there anyone that has experience with wilderness EMS jobs, and if so, could you describe the job in all its glory and sewage?


I'm a newbie with this forum so apologies if I've broken any rules.
 

PotatoMedic

Has no idea what I'm doing.
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The best you probably will be able to get is a medic job working as a park ranger. But those are rare. Second best would be to work for an agency that covers a larger area of wilderness in which you respond and go hiking to fetch them.
 

Summit

Critical Crazy
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There are virtually no wilderness medicine jobs where that is your primary role, even as a volunteer.

FireWA1 covered it.
 

NysEms2117

ex-Parole officer/EMT
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Maybe an Alaska state trooper? But their main role is Law Enforcement. I'd imagine they would have to do some EMS, just due to the response times, but this is a guess, and not factual.
 

EpiEMS

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I believe that some wilderness fire organizations have dedicated medical providers...so that could serve, probably seasonally, as a role.
 

Summit

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I guess you could count ski patrol if you are counting seasonal jobs... but you do have to ski well. Couple people do the ski patrol winter, wildland fire summer thing.
 

Operations Guy

Supreme Overlord
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Denali National Park and Yosemite have dedicated EMS jobs year around. However all park LEOs is EMT and some are medic trained. Park LEO is normally first on scene and they try to stabilize patient for transport. The dedicated EMS job is mostly you call we haul. Unless you get on a helicopter crew but then it's 80 percent wildland firefighting then 20 percent rescue. Best bet would be to go work remote medical once you get your paramedic and some experience.
 

Handsome Robb

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I guess you could count ski patrol if you are counting seasonal jobs... but you do have to ski well. Couple people do the ski patrol winter, wildland fire summer thing.

I still wouldn't count ski patrol as wilderness unless your consistently doing off piste SAR type stuff.


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CALEMT

The Other Guy/ Paramaybe?
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Good luck trying to find a full time wilderness EMT job. Its practically a unicorn job because it just doesn't exist. Like FireWA1 said Park Rangers would be your best bet but even that is far fetched. If you like the desert Border Patrol has a SAR team. Those are the only two that I can think of off the top of my head. USBP requires you to be a field agent (3 years) before trying out for the SAR team, Parks service I believe requires you to also be a LEO.
 

Operations Guy

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Good luck trying to find a full time wilderness EMT job. Its practically a unicorn job because it just doesn't exist. Like FireWA1 said Park Rangers would be your best bet but even that is far fetched. If you like the desert Border Patrol has a SAR team. Those are the only two that I can think of off the top of my head. USBP requires you to be a field agent (3 years) before trying out for the SAR team, Parks service I believe requires you to also be a LEO.

Park Service doesn't make LEO a requirement in the bigger parks with dedicated EMS. It's just a very hard job to land. Most of the guys in the dedicated EMS roles started out either in park fire or where LEOs and knew the right people. Bigger Parks have year around fire jobs as well.
 

Handsome Robb

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An old member on here worked for NPS as a Paramedic, he was seasonal though. My understanding is that most of the EMS only positions are seasonal positions and not year round.


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Operations Guy

Supreme Overlord
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There are year around gigs just hard to land. You may have to work a couple seasons as a seasonal but they will offer full time. They want to see you put in a few seasons as a seasonal before offering full time. It's the same way they hire full time year round LEO and Fire. Plus full time year round is normally GS-6 and above.
 

Summit

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An old member on here worked for NPS as a Paramedic, he was seasonal though. My understanding is that most of the EMS only positions are seasonal positions and not year round.


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An old member on here worked for NPS as a Paramedic, he was seasonal though. My understanding is that most of the EMS only positions are seasonal positions and not year round.


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My friends who are nps medics are seasonal. They work as nurses or raft guides in their of season
 

akflightmedic

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Maybe an Alaska state trooper? But their main role is Law Enforcement. I'd imagine they would have to do some EMS, just due to the response times, but this is a guess, and not factual.

LOL...you say this like a Trooper would be on scene before EMS...I remember some calls where the Trooper could not get to us for 3 days...you know they had to fly in and deal with weather delays and all. LOL

People would be amazed at how things are done in the north...(this has both good and bad connotation).
 

NysEms2117

ex-Parole officer/EMT
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LOL...you say this like a Trooper would be on scene before EMS...I remember some calls where the Trooper could not get to us for 3 days...you know they had to fly in and deal with weather delays and all. LOL

People would be amazed at how things are done in the north...(this has both good and bad connotation).

Had no idea. Was just an idea/guess for the reasons you stated above.


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akflightmedic

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If you ever wanted to get away with a capital crime....AK would be the place to do it! LOL
 

NysEms2117

ex-Parole officer/EMT
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If you ever wanted to get away with a capital crime....AK would be the place to do it! LOL

Ahhh, only thing I know about police there is about 15 minutes of "Alaska state troopers" lol


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akflightmedic

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Yep...months and months of filming to get 15 mins of intense drama. LOL
 

NysEms2117

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Yep...months and months of filming to get 15 mins of intense drama. LOL

Am I to assume all filming is done in the summer?


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Tigger

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The call volume of actual wilderness related EMS incidents does not really support it being a paid position. Yes, bigger parks have staffed, ALS ambulances. But the calls the majority of their calls aren't deep in the backcountry either. They probably run more hike in/SAR type calls than most EMS providers do, but it's still not their primary focus. Regular ground EMS services might provide medical providers to their local SAR teams in less built up areas, but callouts are comparatively rare and your primary job is that of a ground EMS provider. My work keeps a "backcountry" bag in the trucks to let us bring in more targeted gear to hikers/climbers/powersports enthusiasts but we are doing maybe 20 of those calls and have a significant powersports target hazard.
 
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