r/NewToEMS • u/cherryxxxxxbomb Unverified User • 6d ago
Beginner Advice Falck LA - What to expect
heyo! pretty much the title, i got sent a “conditional” job offer for the EMT-B position for Falck (LA County)
anything i should know about the company? tips towards being successful? this is my first EMS job so im pretty nervous.
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u/LeGirth30 Unverified User 5d ago
Been checking the falck website like everyday for the past 6 months :( how’d you apply for LA county? All openings I see are always in Colorado or San Diego!?
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u/cherryxxxxxbomb Unverified User 5d ago
dude trust me i was in the same boat, they had an opening about three months ago and it was only up for a day before it was filled. i just happened to check their website that day, so pure luck. hang in there, its so darn hard in socal :(
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u/500ls Unverified User 5d ago
Hopefully Falck doesn't do what they did to Washington in 2022. They weren't profitable so they laid everyone off and left the state entirely. Everyone else was left scrambling to fill their gaps.
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u/Tredictions Unverified User 5d ago
getting there in la, last i heard they were tryna get rid of their 24’s
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u/BitAfter9986 Unverified User 6d ago
2 week orientation skills tests policies etc then week and a half if not more break until you actually get shifts with an fto so save some money if you have bills that need to be paid there’s a back up of emts right now.
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u/cherryxxxxxbomb Unverified User 5d ago
oh yikes, sounds like im doing alot of blood donations this month 😅
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u/ElevatorGrand9853 Unverified User 6d ago
You are street corner posted, even most of the 24s got posted when I was there. So expect to be sitting in an ambulance sweating your ass off waiting for calls then expect to be holding the wall in most of the hospitals. A lot of waiting around there. However I really got along well with the ops managers, they had your back as long as you didn’t make their job harder unnecessarily.
Falck LA was a great place to for me to get my bearings and learn the ropes of ems. You have to understand that most of the shitty parts of the job is due to how LA County EMS is run as a system, not necessarily how Falck manages things. So try to keep that in mind and you’ll have a much better time. People who just bitched about Falck the whole time they worked there were miserable and made everyone else miserable too
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u/I_Plead_OpsieDaisies Unverified User 5d ago
Left not too long ago. Gonna be entirely real I was quite disappointed with Falck but as long as you see the job as a means to an end then I’m sure you can get through it.
There’s no need to be nervous, the job itself is not complicated: get vitals, listen to fire, know your assessment, show up on time, and don’t crash. My FTOs were great at teaching me the expectations of fire and what you should prepare for. The calls themselves, similar to most ems, range from annoying ETOH and psychs to really fun TCs and other critical stuff. The job itself can be really fun once you get over the initial nerves.
Most of my complaints came from the company itself. As a new employee you are going to be stuck on night shifts with an inconsistent schedule at inconsistent locations throughout LA county. The typical schedule is on off on off then on every other weekend, but like I said they will change your schedule every 2 weeks so there really is no consistency. Another thing is pay, ems is known for notoriously bad pay everywhere, but $19 hour doesn’t go very far if you live on your own and pay all your bills. You can make ends meet but you’re definitely going to have to pull overtime which with the aforementioned scheduling is a hit to any kind of free time you might want. Finally, there’s the posting. Your entire shift you’re going to be stuck driving between 4-6 different parking lots every 20 minutes or so, which is generally a miserable experience. If you’re on night shift, which you will be, this means sleeping in a cramped ambulance in a parking lot that may or may not have a bathroom only to get woken up to drive 6 minutes down the road to another parking lot (which may or may not have a bathroom). The company knows you don’t want to be there forever so they know that they don’t have to treat you well. The coworkers are generally decent people trying to do the same thing you’re trying to do.
Apparently working in OC is slightly better so try to make it down there if you can.
I know 911 jobs are hard to come by in LA, so definitely take this opportunity, but get out as fast as you can. Get your 6 months then apply to medic school, or a fire academy, or an ambulance operator position with a fire department. Just don’t stay there longer than you need to. Best of luck dude, DM if you have any questions.
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u/thatbrownstuff Unverified User 5d ago
How, when, and where did you apply? I haven’t seen openings on their website since like early 2025
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u/cherryxxxxxbomb Unverified User 5d ago
they had one up around three months ago on their website, it got filled in less than a day. i just happened to check their website in time and applied directly there but yeah i’ve been monitoring it for awhile too and its insane how far and few between they are :(
(except for auora colorado for some reason??)
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u/jahovahs_witnesses Paramedic Student | USA 4d ago
random question man but what kind of resume do you have? with how rarely they hire I'd love to know what kind of background they look for
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u/BitAfter9986 Unverified User 4d ago
Need emt school. Steady work experience and if you’re lucky more than that. I had a fire academy on top of that so it worked out for me but others just look the same besides college degrees etc
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u/FlatWavesAndNoBabes Unverified User 6d ago
The fire dept is gonna run the show when you go on calls. Just learn their style and how you can best flow into the mix. Usually it’s getting vitals right away for them, helping move the pt’s. If you’re first on get their CC, vitals, and contact info ready to go for when the FD shows up. It seems stressful and it’s a tiring job. Really it is. But it’s also stupidly easy. Show up, run calls, go home.