First Law of EMS: All emergency calls will wait until you begin to eat, regardless of the time.

The EMS Law of Gravity:
Any instrument, when dropped, will always come to rest in the least accessible place possible.

The EMS Law of Time and Distance:
The distance of the call from the hospital increases as the time to shift change decreases.

Corollary 1 - The shortest distance between the
station and the scene is under construction.

The EMS Rule of Random Simultaneity:
Emergency calls will randomly come in all at once.

The Axiom of Late-Night Runs:
If you respond to any motor vehicle accident call after midnight and do not find a drunk on the scene, keep looking - somebody is still missing.

The EMS Law of Options:
Any patient, when given the option of either going to jail or going to the hospital by a police officer, will always be inside the ambulance before you are.

EMS Rules of the Bathroom:
A. If a call is received between 0500 and 0700, the location of the
call will always be in the bathroom.
B. If you have just gone to the bathroom, no call will be received.
C. If you have not just gone to the bathroom, you will soon regret it,
because the probability of receiving a run increases proportionally to
the time elapsed since last going to the bathroom.

The First Principle of Triage:
In any accident, the degree of injury suffered by a patient is
inversely proportional to the amount and volume of agonized screaming
produced by that patient.

The Gross Injury Rule:
Any injury, the sight of which makes you sick, should immediately be
covered by 4x4s and Kerlix.

The EMS Law of Light:
As the seriousness of any given injury increases, the availability of
light to examine that injury decreases.

The EMS Law of Space:
The amount of space which is needed to work on a patient varies
inversely with the amount of space which is available to work on that patient.

The EMS Theory of Relativity:
The number of distraught and uncooperative relatives surrounding any
given patient varies exponentially with the seriousness of the
patient's illness or injury.

The EMS Theory of Weight:
The weight of the patient that you are about to transport increases by
the square of the sum of the number of floors which must be ascended to
reach the patient plus the number of floors which must be descended
while carrying the patient.
Corollary 1 - Very heavy patients tend to gravitate toward locations
which are furthest from sea level.
Corollary 2 - If the patient is heavy, the elevator is broken, and the
lights in the stairwell are out.

The EMS Rules of No-Transport:
A Life-or-Death situation will immediately be created by driving away
from the home of patient whom you have just advised to go to the
hospital in a private vehicle.

The First EMS Rule of Bystanders:
Any bystander who offers you help will give you none.

The Second EMS Rule of Bystanders:
Always assume that any Physician found at the scene of an emergency is
a Gynecologist, until proven otherwise.

The EMS Rule of Warning Devices:
Any ambulance, whether it is responding to a call or traveling to a
hospital, with lights and siren, will be totally ignored by all
motorists, pedestrians, and dogs which may be found in or near the
roads along its route.

The EMS Rule of Rules:
As soon as an EMS Rule is accepted as absolute, an
exception to that Rule will immediately occur.

The EMS Rule of Threes:
Bad calls, stupid calls, and gruesome calls usually come in threes, meaning there are usually three a shift or three a week of a certain type of call.

EMS Rules of Rest and Relaxation:
As soon as you get back from a call and prop your feet up to rest or watch something you've wanted to see all week on TV is when the long distance transport or bad call will be dispatched

The Rule of Respiratory Arrest: All patients who are vomiting and must be intubated will have just completed a large meal of Barbecue and Onions, Garlic Pizza, and Pickled Herring, all of which was washed down with at least three cans of Beer.

The First Rule of Equipment: Any piece of Life-saving Equipment will never malfunction or fail until:
a) You need it to save a life, or
b) The salesman leaves.

The Second Rule of Equipment: Interchangeable parts don't, leak proof seals will, and self-starters won't.

The First Law of Ambulance Operation: No matter how fast you drive the Ambulance when responding to a call, it will never be fast enough, until you pass a Police Cruiser, at which point it will be entirely too fast. Unless you are responding to an "Officer Down" call then it is physically impossible to be traveling fast enough!

The Law of Protocol Directives: The simplest Protocol Directive will be worded in the most obscure and complicated manner possible. Speeds, for example, will be expressed as "Furlongs per Fortnight" and flow rates as "Hogsheads per Hour".

Corollary 1: If you don't understand it, it must be intuitively obvious.
Corollary 2: If you can understand it, you probably don't

The Law of Show-and-Tell: A virtually infinite number of wide-eyed and inquisitive school-aged children can climb into the back of any Ambulance, and, given the opportunity, invariably will.

Corollary 1: No emergency run will come in until they are all inside the Ambulance and playing with the equipment.
Corollary 2: It will take at least four times as long to get them all out as it took to get them in.
Corollary 3: A vital piece of equipment will be missing.