Junior Ambulance Corps To Add New (Younger) Faces

To Local Emergency Services

By Nancy K. Crevier

Imagine being taken away from the scene of a car accident in the back of an ambulance. You open your eyes and realize a teenager is taking your vital signs. Or you place a frantic call to the ambulance service when your elderly father-in-law falls to the floor unconscious. Emergency services arrive and you open the door to find a high school student has come to your aid.

Soon, it may not be just your imagination.

Thanks to the cooperation of Newtown High School and the Newtown Ambulance Corps, youthful EMTs may come to your rescue within the next year.

The Newtown Ambulance Association has conditionally approved the creation of a junior ambulance corps for Newtown. According to Liz Caine, Newtown Ambulance Corps chief, a rewrite committee will make changes to existing corps by-laws, enabling young adults ages 16–18 to join the organization.

“The program is still in its infancy,” she says. “We want to get into this very carefully,” noting that matters of confidentiality, safety, and counseling still need to be addressed.

Newtown ambulance workers were inspired by a May 2002 article in Journal of Emergency Medical Services, which outlined the very successful program implemented by Post 53 in Darien. Supported by an adult EMT-intermediate, the students assist at ambulance calls ranging from heart attacks to car crashes. According to the article, Darien students work their way up to the ambulance corps over a period of time.

High school youth who have completed the EMT training teach first aid to interested Darien freshmen. Those who do well in first aid testing are invited to serve with the organization, attending meetings and training sessions, and doing odd jobs. From there, they earn the privilege of riding in the ambulance with a certified EMT, providing first aid. As sophomores, these young people can take the EMT course and become part of the primarily teen-run ambulance service in Darien. Newtown hopes to duplicate the success of the Darien program.

A junior ambulance corps, made up of EMT-certified student volunteers, would fill a huge need for more trained ambulance technicians in Newtown. The ambulance corps handles an increasing number of calls each year, and daytime as well as nighttime shifts are hard to fill. Because emergency services requires hard, physical work and stressful situations, technicians can become “brain tired” and burn out. The average time spent as an EMT is ten years.

“The town is growing,” says Chief Caine. “These children are our resource and will replace ‘dinosaurs’ like me. I see people getting into this earlier and earlier, which is good. They are fresh, with new ideas. Some of the college kids we have now are awesome.”

Debbie Aubin, a Newtown Ambulance Corps member and registered nurse who Chief Caine sees as instrumental in the new program’s success, agrees.

“The more experiences and more seasoned they become, the better EMTs they become.”

Presently, Ms Aubin instructs a class made up of 11 Newtown High School students seeking their state EMT (emergency medical technician) certification, all of whom she anticipates “adopting” into the corps.

“Some 16-year-olds,” says Ms Aubin, “are really mature and can deal with situations. Some 40-year-olds can’t!”

Because the new recruits will most likely be high school students, Ms Aubin has been working with Peg Ragaini, school-to-career coordinator at Newtown High School, and, prior to his retirement, assistant principal Jules Triber, to put together rules for the fledgling organization. Their hope is to reach out to more students for EMT training.

A $2,200 grant from the Connecticut Office of Rural Health will provide a stipend to EMT instructors and pay for tuition for EMT instructor training. In applying for the grant, the three committee members listed goals of maintaining quality of instructors for EMT courses; to encourage enlistment of more daytime volunteers; and to establish a junior ambulance corps in Newtown.

Says Ms Ragaini, “We think this will be a positive way for high school students to interact with the community.”

A tentative plan would allow an EMT-certified student to be on call one day each month, for a total of nine days per school year (September–May). Junior corps members must be 16 years of age or older, provide the school with a copy of their EMT-B certificate, be approved through the school as well as the regular ambulance corps, and have written parental permission. They must also be in good academic standing and remain so.

EMT certification is a rigorous process involving 120 hours plus of class, hands-on experience, and demanding practical and written tests. The certification process is the same, no matter what the participant’s age.

Ms Aubin stresses, “It [EMT certification] is rewarding. It enriches their lives throughout, they learn to give to the community and they learn to help themselves and others. I feel very close and attached to the kids who take the EMT course.”

Barring unforeseen complications, Chief Caine, Ms Aubin, and Ms Raigani are optimistic that a junior ambulance corps will be up and running in the next several months.