20-Year Prospect

20-Year Prospect

Accidents happen. A lot. In fact, in the United States in 2009, nearly eleven million accidents happened…car accidents, that is. And, while it sucks that people go through windshields and end up as splatters on the highway, this kind of emergency is your bread and butter.

Of course, if driverless cars ever become an actual thing, you may find yourself having to tend to fewer and fewer traffic-related injuries. Google's self-driving cars logged 700,000 accident-free miles as of April 2014, and are now clever enough to react to cyclists, even the ones that like to suddenly swerve into the road for no apparent reason.

But don't worry: even if car accidents become a thing of the past someday, you'll still have lots of other emergencies to attend to. More than 700,000 Americans have heart attacks every year – you could get called out for one of those. Or what about the band geeks who suffer heat exhaustion after halftime because they're forced to march in wool uniforms under the hot Texas sun?

In other words, EMTs like you will be around forever…just like emergencies.