Whether your service is chartered as a volunteer fire department, municipally based, not-for-profit or commercial, the responsibilities of and the penalties for not properly training your emergency and non-emergency vehicle operators are tremendous. Civil, criminal, and punitive damages and charges may become part of your vocabulary if one of your vehicles is involved in a crash that injures or kills one of your staff members, a patient, or a civilian vehicle operator/pedestrian.

The Volunteer Fireman’s Insurance Services Inc. Emergency Vehicle Operations Course was developed to allow the emergency vehicle operator (EVO) and other patient transportation vehicle operators to understand their total responsibilities when driving their vehicles in the emergency and non-emergency modes. The opportunity to learn that there are other options available to them will enable your operators to achieve higher levels of professionalism when it involves their own personal safety and the safety of their crew, their patient, and the community they are serving.

Other Concerns:

However, emergency vehicle operation is more than the physical aspect of driving. Being able to understand the moral aspects is just as important.

Several emergency medical technicians, paramedics and firefighters across the nation have learned what happens when they are involved in an emergency vehicle crash. Many have been charged criminally as a result of a crash, and several have been sentenced to and served prison time as a result of their convictions.

The Course:

The course is typically conducted with a four hour classroom session and eight hours allowed for practical performance. The practical course is suitable for passenger vehicles, ambulances, fire apparatus and any type of motor vehicle. Course scheduling the classroom portion on a regular meeting night with the practical exercises conducted on the following Saturday.

This program follows the curriculum established by the VFIS, the insurance provider for many departments in New Mexico and across the country. This course has been approved for 16 hours of non-medical continuing education credit by the New Mexico Department of Health, Injury Prevention and EMS Bureau.