Girl on Fire: Back in the classroom

[As seen in Creston News Advertiser, September 17, 2015]

I walked into the hospital, unsure where the conference room was. There were two men leaning against the wall, and one asked if I was with the class. I said yes, and he led me down a long hallway and pointed at a door with frosted glass. I thanked him and walked inside.

Inside the room, sitting around tables set up conference style, was a small group of people mostly around my age with giant yellow books in front of them. I took a seat and waited.

I am one of nine students taking an emergency medical technician (EMT) course in Corning through Southwestern Community College this fall and winter, and Tuesday night was the first official face-to-face, I-can’t-believe-I-decided-to-go-through-with-this-because-I’m-so-nervous class.

Turns out, it wasn’t all bad.

During the four-hour class, which will be held twice a week for all of time (or until early February), our instructor Randy Crum went through several chapters from our textbook and gave real-world examples of situations mentioned. It was a regular, old lecture class, which is something I’d forgotten all about in the four years I’ve been out of college.

I suppose I should give a little background at this point. I decided to attend the EMT course a while ago when Cheryl Blazek, who’s the EMT for the Creston Fire Department and works at SWCC’s adult and continuing education department, put up some flyers at the station. I got some information on it and took the plunge.

I mentioned in some previous columns about considering continuing my education, and chose to take firefighter II over a master’s degree program. Unfortunately, I admit to putting that on the back burner before coming across the EMT class. But, now that I’m back in the swing of things, maybe I’ll continue with my firefighter II and get certified at some point.

Based on that one class, my opinion of the EMT class is already pretty high. I can tell I’ll learn so much from Randy, and even today we will be doing some hands-on work. I really am excited to see how the class goes and eventually go out and put my learned skills to the test.