Yesterday, I had the opportunity to meet Emergency Medical Technicians and firefighters at Santaluces to discuss the importance of having aid for people in danger with fires and medical assistance. They talked about how they came into the field to help others in need and what standards they need to hold to achieve these goals. 

Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT):

The EMT special guest spoke about daily life, and how you can start college to become a certified EMT, apply for positions, and earn a high pay rate. Palm Beach County has 60 stations and is steadily growing. Palm Beach State College has an EMT program for people who are ready to learn skills to treat wounds on the scene while transporting them to the hospital.

I asked a question, “What was a difficult thing you encountered on the job?” His response was “Separating work and personal life when you get home and try to relax it’s difficult when you’re on the go 24/7, and getting to calls from people to where there is no survival rate at the scene and it can affect people emotionally.” His reason for working  as an Emergency Medical Technician is wanting to help people in need.

Firefighters:

Three firefighters were introduced to us and talked about the process of becoming a firefighter and operations along with being handled as one. The reason behind firefighters is to suppress fires, mitigate gas leaks in houses/commercial buildings, and extra cases such as opening a trapped individual in cars. They have the same capabilities as EMTs administrating what to do,  the only thing that they can’t do is transport that patient into a hospital. In case EMT stations are busy firefighters are the first ones to respond to a call and aid until the EMT specialists arrive. They have multiple large pieces of equipment to tackle different situations.