On call, on campus

When Matt McCarty ’10 dons his EMT uniform, he never knows if he will be called on to save someone’s life. But it is always a possibility.

On top of their academic workloads, a number of University students like McCarty volunteer as EMTs, taking on tremendous responsibility while benefiting from an invaluable experience.

“I feel like I’m really having an impact on people,” McCarty said. “It’s being a part of society that most people take for granted.”

New Jersey law requires that EMTs complete a 120-hour training program and pass practical training and licensing tests to receive certification.

The time commitment does not stop after training. At Princeton First Aid & Rescue Squad (PFARS), junior members sign up for 32 hours of duty every four weeks, while more experienced members log 40 hours monthly. The most senior PFARS members often carry around a radio and a pager to respond to additional calls.

“It’s tricky,” former PFARS member Anthony Rossettie ’09 said of the time commitment. Rossettie resigned from the squad this December to focus on his thesis.

“The 32 or 40 hours is only a baseline commitment; people often get scheduled for more,” he explained, noting that the required hours do not include the additional training or monthly meetings held at the Princeton station.

Still, he said, “most students who are really committed find some way to squeeze the shift in during their weekends and nights or other possibly loose times in their schedules.”

Ashley Dunning ’11 said that PFARS’ scheduling flexibility permitted her to balance her EMT responsibilities and a demanding academic schedule. “I can pick my own time that I want to volunteer,” she said.

Bing Chiu ’11 said time management was key to handling his schedule. “Sometimes, lower priority items would have to be postponed [for EMT commitments], but overall, I feel it is very manageable,” he said in an e-mail.

On duty

Brittney Johnson ’10’s first night on the job is ingrained in her memory. “My first call involved a motor vehicle accident where the patient flipped his car four times when he lost control of his vehicle after a heavy rainfall,” Johnson said in an e-mail.

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She said she was impressed by the confidence other squad members displayed while treating the hysterical driver, adding that the incident made her fully “aware of the responsibility of [the] job.”

Not every EMT’s first call is so dramatic. Shihab Ali ’11 recalled treating a woman who had sprained her ankle in a grocery store, noting that it was “nice that my first call wasn’t a bloody mess.”

Ali said many emergency calls are placed by people who are merely frightened and not in life-threatening danger, in which cases EMTs need only “tell them they’re OK.”

Eileen Hwang ’05, a current crew chief at West Windsor’s Twin “W” First Aid Squad, remembered when her crew visited the home of an elderly woman who was complaining of abdominal pain and swelling.

“Basically, she was just really lonely,” Hwang explained. “Once we were there and talked to her for a while, [the woman] said the abdominal swelling wasn’t so bad.”

Still, Princeton students have dealt with more serious calls.

Ali and his team once received a call reporting that a woman who was eight-and-half-months pregnant was bleeding severely.

Since EMTs are only allowed to care for external injuries, administer CPR and use a limited number of drugs, there was “not too much” Ali and the other crewmembers could do for the woman except rush her to the hospital, he said.

Johnson said one of her most difficult experiences was a domestic violence case involving an “emotionally devastated” woman. “These calls are usually the more draining calls for me since my job entails not only the treatment of the patient’s physical pains, but I must also offer strong emotional support.”

Thursday, July 24

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On call, on campus

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On call, on campus

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