The BRMC Ambulance Page
 Update February 2015: After 20+ years working part-time I resigned from the ambulance service. I seemed to have less and less time to devote to working there. In the summer I'd rather ride my bike and in the winter I have projects to do. For the first 11 years I worked pretty much every weekend...first on Friday night then on Saturdays. When I started building my garage in 2005 I cut back to two Saturdays a month. Around 2010 I cut back again to working once a month. This is the minimum requirement for a part-time employee. The last few years I didn't really enjoy working there but I wanted to stick it out for 20 years. The hospital was now part of the IU Health network and last year our ambulance service was merged with Bloomington. Things have gotten very corporate with a thousand unnecessary rules and a complete lack of common sense. The hospital became a 'critical access' hospital. This allows them to obtain more reimbursements from Medicare/Medicaid but it requires the hospital to have a census of less than 25 patients. What this means for the ambulance service is constantly transferring patients to Bloomington. This, combined with the ever growing abuse of the healthcare system, made me more and more cynical and apathetic every time the tones would sound. Also, the Indiana EMS Commission redefined the requirements for an Advanced EMT and most Advanced EMTs were automatically demoted to a Basic EMT. Bastards. Another thing that had a negative affect on me was when the ambulance service switched to digital radios a few years ago. After listening to 'my ambulance service' for nearly twenty years they were suddenly gone from the airwaves. I no longer knew what was going on and felt detached from the service. One of the things I enjoyed about the ambulance service were the 24-hour shifts. You could watch TV, use the computer, sleep, run errands...just hang out. If you weren't busy it was like a 24 hour getaway. That all changed with the merging with Bloomington. 12-hour shifts. They took away the beds. Everything is done on the computer even if it takes ten times longer. A hundred passwords to remember that expire every month. Less hours per shift meant less pay with no hope of uptime. Tons of mandatory training and it was always 'during the week, during the day' and I would have to take vacation time to attend. Bloomington also requires their Basic EMTs to take a lot of paramedic-level training and I wasn't going to do that. Financially, it was making less and less sense to work there, and my heart just wasn't in it. So, on a cold February evening, I turned in my resignation and cleaned out my locker. I miss the people. I miss the honor of serving the community and helping people in need. But I don't miss what the job had become or what the hospital had become. When you work at something in addition to a full-time job you have to enjoy it and I no longer did.
The BRMC Ambulance Service is part of the Bedford Regional Medical Center, and is located at 2900 West 16th Street, Bedford, Indiana. We are a 'paramedic service', which means at least one of our trucks is always staffed with a paramedic. We have two trucks staffed 24 hours a day with two-man (excuse me, two-person) crews. We currently have 21 employees: 13 full-time and 7 part-time. This also breaks down as 8 paramedics, 9 advanced EMTs, 3 basic EMTs, and 1 dispatcher. Our Ambulance Director is Bob Atkins. See our new ambulance here. See our new ambulance station here.
Here are two of our ambulances...Ambulance 2 (foreground) and Ambulance 3. Ambulance 2 was placed into service in August 1999, and Ambulance 3 in April 2001. Both trucks were manufactured by American Emergency Vehicles. Ambulance 2 will become a backup truck with the arrival of the new Ambulance 1.
This is Ambulance 4. It is our backup truck and is used for special events.
Our hospital is now part of the Clarian Health Network, which was a merging of
Methodist Hospital, Riley Hospital for Children, and the IU Medical Center, all of Indianapolis. Our hospital was
founded in 1970 as the Bedford Medical Center, along with a separate suite of doctors' offices known as the Edgewood
Clinic. In 1996 the hospital and clinic became one entity and merged with Methodist Hospital, becoming known as the
Bedford Regional Medical Center.
BRMC is a regional training center. Click here for more information.
"Ambulance driver" - A generic term often used by the public to describe EMTs. If you want to irritate an EMT call them an 'ambulance driver'. This refers back to the old days when an ambulance provided little or no medical care, and just drove an injured patient to the hospital. These days ambulance personnel are highly trained, medical professionals. In Indiana they are divided into 3 classes: Worth Noting BRMC Ambulance has been featured in 'Rescue 911'. They also provided medical direction/care on the set of the movie 'Best of the Best 3' at all their Indiana locations.
Several of BRMC's EMTs are members of the Lawrence County Emergency Response Team (SWAT team).
EMS links
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