Garner Volunteer Ambulance Service

10/18/2026

West Hancock Ambulance Service is looking to hire a Paramedic! Let us know if you want to join our service! Share this post to help us in the job search!

10/18/2026

Potential EMT Classes starting early 2027!

Here is an opportunity to join and help your community!

Anyone can join. Drivers, EMR, EMT, AEMT, Paramedics, Nurses, NPs, PAs, Doctors! Training is provided and education assistance is available if requirements are met.

Do you Live in Vinje? Scarville? Not a problem! Do you live in another county or state? Not a problem! Do you work in the area and your employer will allow you to leave work? Great! This position is moved to whichever community needs the assistance. Please reach out if you are questioning if you qualify!

This is a good way to earn some extra money for Christmas, a Family vacation or even just because. Hourly rates vary for on-call time. Perdium is offered for shifts over 6 hours to encourage community involvement with grocery shopping or going out to eat in the community you are protecting.

Please reach out to learn more or request an application!

10/18/2026

Potential EMT class starting in February of 2027! Give us a call or reach out if interested!

10/10/2026

We were pleased to host a special guest at out last meeting. A father and baby visited us to update us on his current status. We were so pleased to see that he was growing quite well. On pace with his age.
Last January, we were called to a premature birth at home. The baby boy was just over 2lbs at birth. We responded with 2 ambulances, and transported immediately with positive results. Pictured is the crews that responded. with the boy and his father. **Missing from the picture is Brian Roberts Paramedic.**
In our field, we don't always get updates on our patients. It's always nice when you get positive ones. Like this one.

10/09/2026

This is so true. People really don’t understand EMS.

09/23/2026

Thanks to numerous generous donors, we have been able to purchase and install a new backup generator for our building! It'll be a huge help to stay fully operational during power outages. A huge THANK YOU goes out to our community and our donors for making this possible for us. I must also include a thank you to the membership committee that spent the time on this project to make this happen.

09/22/2026

09/21/2026

Please try to remember to be kind. We are all human…. Trying our best in some very difficult situations. We wish everyone good health and staying safe!

There’s the call you run.

And then there’s the part nobody puts on the CAD.

You clear the hospital. The doors close. You climb back into the truck, throw the seatbelt on, and somebody eventually says:

“Ready?”

Sometimes you are.

Sometimes you’re not.

I’ve had calls where we talked about everything on the way back—what we were going to eat, who was working tomorrow, something stupid that happened at the station.

And I’ve had calls where neither of us said much at all.

Not because we didn’t know what to say.

Because we were still processing what we had just seen.

That’s something you learn after enough years in EMS.

Clearing the hospital doesn’t necessarily mean you’re done with the call.

Sometimes you notice it later.

You’re restocking and remember something the family member said.

You’re driving home and think about the patient again.

You hear a tone that sounds like one from a bad call.

You see a kid standing in a doorway and suddenly remember another scene.

And sometimes you don’t think about it at all until years later.

That’s the part of EMS I wish we talked about more.

Not every difficult call becomes a crisis.

Not every call needs a formal debrief.

But pretending every call rolls off your back because you’ve been doing this long enough isn’t reality either.

Experience teaches you how to work the scene.

It teaches you how to recognize the sick patient.

It teaches you how to manage the family, communicate with the hospital, and make decisions when things get messy.

But experience doesn’t make you stop being human.

Some calls stay with you.

Some don’t.

And sometimes you don’t know which one it will be until later.

That’s okay.

The call ends when the patient is transferred.
The experience may take a little longer.

— The Human Factor of EMS

08/29/2026

EMS Students

To the people beginning EMT class this fall,
Right now, you probably feel like you know absolutely nothing. That is correct. It is also completely normal.
You’re going to learn trauma and medical emergencies, airway management and patient assessment, operations and more acronyms than any reasonable person should ever be expected to memorize. You’ll practice skills until your hands begin to remember what your brain is still trying to understand.
But I hope you’ll learn something else, too.
I hope you’ll learn that EMS isn’t only cardiac arrests, major traumas, and dramatic saves. In fact, if that's what you want to do, EMS probably isn't for you. The truth is, most of the time, beauty is found in much smaller moments.
It’s helping someone off the floor without making them feel ashamed. Calming a frightened parent. Making a sick child laugh. Finding someone’s glasses and cell phone charger before you leave. Covering someone with a blanket, and wrapping their head in a towel so they don't get cold. Sitting beside someone who is lonely.
It’s walking into a room where everyone is scared and slowly becoming the calmest person
At first, every scenario will feel like chaos. Then one day, you’ll walk in and know where to start. You’ll hear a set of vital signs and recognize that something isn’t right. You’ll look at a patient and think, Oh, I know what to do.
And that moment will change you.
You don’t need to know yet whether EMS will be your forever career. I hope some of you stay, because this field desperately needs your curiosity, your compassion, and the particular way you see the world. But however long you remain, this work will leave something behind in you.
For now, just show up. Ask questions. Be curious. Be willing to be wrong. Take care of the students sitting beside you, because they are becoming part of your EMS family, too.
One day, probably soon, someone will call 911 on one of the hardest days of their life—and you will be the person who walks through their door.
They may not remember your name. But they may remember your voice. Your calm. The way you protected their dignity. The moment they looked toward the door and realized they were no longer alone.
So learn the medicine. Learn the skills. Both of these are fundamentally important to what we do.
But also learn how to become the person who walks through the door and immediately brings relief, calm and compassion to a room filled with fear and pain.

Welcome to EMS.
Credit to Sarah Moore