Rapides Parish EMS Day Exposes High School Students to Emergency Medical Services Field
Tioga High School hosted an EMS Day to provide career opportunities to aspiring high school students.
ABC 31 News Reporter Keisha Swafford has the story on how this event exposed students to the emergency medical field.
With a fun and interactive EMS Day, students gained a different perspective into the EMS world.
EMT Student Ava Borland says, “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to see all these different departments do what they do and see demonstrations of it, firsthand, it’s really cool.”
Two students are currently enrolled in the EMT program at Tioga High.
EMT Basic and Tioga High Teacher Brittney Kings says, “The EMT classes are fairly new to high schools, and it’s not really known. A lot of the kids don’t know they can do that.”
This is Tioga High School’s second school year to have the EMT classes.
EMR Student Hayden Whatley says, “I want to become an EMT because it’s a career that really caught my attention. I always wanted to be one with the community, really help everybody out, experience a lot of new things because that’s what we’d be doing.”
Students participated in interactive demonstrations to explore fire rescue and patient transportation.
Brittney Kings says, “A lot of kids don’t realize that you can do any of this as EMR or EMT so it’s really just to open their eyes and let them see what they can actually put their hands on and do and if that’s something that they can stick with and move to in the future.”
They experienced a day in the life of a firefighter.
EMS Director Shane Guillory says, “This is what this is about is getting them engaged, doing it for the right reasons, this is why we do it, yes, it is an adrenaline rush, but we do it for the community.”
The Louisiana National Guard taught students how to save the life of an injured soldier.
Tioga High Student Erick Frazier says, “I found out that it’s not as easy as it looks, it was cool, it felt realistic, with the blood shooting out, like the leg was moving, but the people when they did it, they made it look easy but when I tried, it was actually harder.”
News Reporter Keisha Swafford demonstrated how to use the tourney kit. “I need to twist this three times in order to save his life or save his leg.”
Whether it’s in air med or in an emergency vehicle, students can be an EMT and help the community.
Kings says, “A part of the pre-requisite is the EMR class so getting them in the class and letting them see that they can do this and that’s an option, I think this opens the kids up, even the kids that didn’t attend, oh, I can do all that.”
Tioga High students can start enrolling the EMT program their junior year.
Sponsors include Alexandria ER, Freedom Bakery, and BJ’s Pizza.
