Friend of mine was an EMT, and he advanced on and became a paramedic.

The work seemed to suit him, he enjoyed it. I'd hang out with him at his base of operations (he was a private paramedic in LA County).

Then, one day, he quit.

He quit, and didn't renew his certification.

And he won't talk about it, and, boy, yea, did he have some stories.

But something got to him.

How about: raging PTSD? A former buddy of mine had that like crazy, and apparently it's rampant in the profession (of course it is!).

Also, they (BC Ambulance) treat you like garbage when you need assistance, and effectively force you back to work or to go find a job elsewhere.

It's shocking how badly we treat the people that willingly take on life's hardest challenges (for low pay, I might add). It's amazing any are even left after all that BS.

OP: I've wanted to be an EMT for a long time, but I made excuses for years. I wanted to share some of them with y'all; maybe they resonate with you, or inspire you to do something you've been putting off.

Because worst-case, you might enjoy it.

Going on a slight tangent, I wanted to do the same thing but with firefighting instead. One thing I've found is that a good portion of your time is supposedly spent doing fundraisers

My dad liked to tell me about cadaver college because I gag at the thought or sight of gore and that's kept me working on trees, cars and computers and not humans

David Lee Roth did it.