Map Reading

Been busy with family, work and EMS stuff. State written exam is Thursday night. I haven't really studied for it yet, but have taken several practice NREMT exams from a book I bought. I've been scoring right around 90%, and assuming the state test is anything like these I am not worried about passing (which is 70%). I know our state protocals very well so any state specific stuff should only help me.

Just got back from a call that was interesting for non medical reasons:

Control: "XXXX ambulance monitors, 2 car MVA on Route ZZ". Hits our tones. Repeats: "XXXX ambulance monitors, 2 car MVA on Route ZZ".

Now, at this point I'm out the door driving to the station when it occurs to me that it might help to know WHERE on Rt. ZZ the accident is, or, even, whether it is North or South of town.

Medic 6: "Medic 6 to control"
Control: "Control's on Medic 6"
Medic 6: "I'm responding to the station. Do you know where on Rt. ZZ the MVA is?"
Control: "Affirmative Medic 6. Police state the MVA is on S. Main in ----ville".

Route ZZ goes through a lot of villages around here, and often has a street name in each place. In ----ville, S. Main is in one county (which we do not serve) and N. Main is in our county (E and W main split the village in half, we take the north side, a different corps takes the south).

Our Chief: "Control, are you sure this call is in our county"?
Control: "You are covered by static".

While our chief tries to figure out if it is our call, we are flying down the road toward the MVA. We are within sight of the accident, which is clearly across the county line, when we are called off. It is property damage only AND it is in the wrong county. We go check everyone out anyway, but our chief, who arrived on the second rig, was a little grumpy with control once he got a hold of them. Personally, I don't let 200 yards get me too wired up, but it is true that there was no mistaking that this call belonged to someone else AND that a quick look at the map would have told control this. Everyone has bad days, and today control and our chief must have both gotten up on the wrong side of the bed. For some reason it only put me in a good mood (maybe because I got the boost from the call, got to drive fast, and everyone was OK).