These people are called by many names: ambulance squads, paramedics, or even the more cumbersome pre-hospital emergency care practitioners. But whatever the label, we're talking about the members of emergency medical services (EMS) — a system that provides critical medical care before patients reach a hospital.

Unless you have someone in your personal circles who works in EMS, most of what we think we know about them comes from TV shows or movies, and we can only guess how reliable that is. So to give you a more authentic glimpse into their daily lives, we've collected a series of pictures from the Facebook group 'EMS Humor,' each showing the challenges, surprises, and realities these professionals face on the job.

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