#i will absolutely accept critiques of my definitions of what paramedics or emts are or can do

[liesoverthec]

I was wondering.. in term of professions, what are Chimney and Hen? Are they paramedics? just EMTs? or firefighter/paramedics? Bobby is a fire captain, buck and eddie are firefighters? Are latter 3 also EMTs like paramedic and EMT are different and firefighters also have to be an EMT I guess? And Hen once said to Michael that Bobby is an EMT.. I don't live in the US so it's confusing me.

Hey anon, good morning! (It’s probably not morning where you are nor will it be morning when I finally post this but I’m starting on this first thing in my morning so, good morning! 😂)

Okay so - here’s the facts, as I know them.

Bc the US is such a governmental mess, there is no one standard for what medical training a firefighter is required to have as a minimum across the United States. Some departments really really want everyone to be a paramedic, some say EMT is the basic.

This is also TV land, so I have honestly no idea if the show’s LAFD follows the same medical requirements as the real life LAFD - there’s not really any good information on that on their website. I can just tell you what everyone is based on their medical training and the definitions for those positions.

EMTs and paramedics are different. EMTs have basic medical training, but way more than the average civilian would get just from doing a first aid class. Paramedics are people with the most training who can provide the highest level of pre-hospital care, and it’s a lot more work to become a paramedic than an EMT (obvs w the level of knowledge involved, if you remember Chim drilling himself so hard in his Begins ep, Google says EMT training is ~100hr, and paramedic training is ~1000hr). This Dallas-based EMT site says that EMTs can do things that don’t break the skin - eg no IVs, no stitches, etc, and paramedics CAN do the skin-breaking stuff. And also here’s another link to a US-based EMT website that explains the differences if you want to read it yourself!

Hen and Chim are paramedics. They went through the extra training, they got certified, they have fancy patches for it on their uniforms.That’s why 98% of the time, they provide all of the primary medical care, and also why they drive the ‘bus.

Bobby and Buck are EMTs. They’ve never specifically said Buck is an EMT, like you mentioned they have w Bobby (at least that I can remember), but most real life departments require you to be at least an EMT, and we’ve seen Buck do things like splint broken bones or do basic medical checks to help diagnose patients, all of which are things you need to be EMT-certified to do. Plus he would need to be, to be sent into places like the tilting building during the earthquake, so that he could provide enough care to get those patients, alive, to actual paramedics.

Eddie is also an EMT. My understanding of his situation is this - he does have medic training from the army, but he has not been paramedic certified, so Bobby can’t (and shouldn’t) treat him like any other paramedic. However, it does let him be an extra set of medic hands when the team needs it - eg when Chim was out on paternity leave. But until we get confirmation he’s taken the paramedic exam, he’s just an EMT like Bobby and Buck. (Little rant about paramedic Eddie, since I see so many people calling for it - y’all realize it will mean LESS screen time for him, right? Leaving aside the whole thing of ‘Chim and Hen still most likely being the primary paramedics’, if he does get paramedic time, it VERY OFTEN doesn’t count as screen time bc the camera focuses on just their hands. So it’d probably mean similar or even less amounts of Eddie, until Hen or Chim moves on. Unfortunately.) Anyways, for fic writing purposes, I’d say you could probably get away w/ him acting solely as an EMT on the job, but doing paramedic stuff if there was a uhhhhhh personal emergency 👀👀👀.

If anyone has anything to add about the definitions of EMT vs paramedic, feel free to add on! (So anon maybe check the comments just in case!) But honestly I’d say any anecdotal/real life experience with any fire department system should probably be taken w/ a grain of salt bc like I said before - this is TV land. The show can and will change anything it wants to make their story happen, so I would tend to favor what the show tells you about their fictional department, JUST FOR FIC WRITING PURPOSES, over anything real life if there’s a conflict in information, if you’d like to make anything as canon as possible. If you want to make it MORE realistic than the show and use real life protocols etc, then that is something totally else and I applaud you for it. I mostly just want to say that for people who may want to yell at me in the comments - I did not make this system with its similarities or differences from real life, I’m just reporting what the show tells us, pls be gentle w me!

*anon I realized I didn’t TOTALLY answer your question so I’m editing to add - they’re all firefighters. They just all are also either a paramedic or an EMT, in addition to being a firefighter.

Thanks for the question anon, hope this helps!

🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝