By Jim Epperson III
The Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, OK)
Copyright 2006 The Oklahoman, All Rights Reserved
They’re feeling the heat — and learning that even sick Oklahomans can be polite.
The old man with the big dog was nice, even though he had a shotgun leaning against his wall. That’s something college students from Boston don’t often see.
The man who was cut up with a bottle in a fight at an apartment complex was thankful to see the students.
“Everybody’s really nice and friendly, and they’ll talk to you,” said Eric Williamson, one of 18 college students from Boston riding with Emergency Medical Services Authority during a two-week training program that started July 16.
“In Boston, everyone is going a thousand miles an hour trying to get to the next place,” Williamson said.
Williamson, 24, said he is still trying to get used to Oklahoma’s hot weather.
On his first day, he assisted EMSA paramedics with a heat-related call during the “graveyard,” shift, which runs from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.
Williamson and the other students are from Massachusetts Bay Community College.
Their work will earn them college credit, but they also are getting valuable experience.
Williamson, who works for an emergency medical service in Boston, wants to be a firefighter, and most of his fellow college students who came to Oklahoma City are hoping to become paramedics.
The students evaluate patients’ conditions, insert intravenous lines and apply medications under the supervision of EMSA medics.
The Oklahoma heat upped EMSA’s call volume, and that meant more calls and more training for the students, said Dana Sampson, who is director of paramedics at the Boston school and arranged for the training in Oklahoma City.
“I can’t say enough about the hospitality and their (EMSA’s) people,” Sampson said. “And their technology ... .”
Sampson said he looked across the United States for a fit with his education program and chose EMSA.
This is his second year in Oklahoma for the program.
Sampson and Williamson said EMSA uses far more advanced equipment than emergency medical services in Massachusetts.
Students from Japan, Australia and the United Kingdom have come to Oklahoma to train with EMSA, said Brent Kinsey, EMSA’s director of operations.
The students could not have come at a better time, he said, because EMSA’s call volume has increased by 30 percent from heat-related calls.
“It’s hard to get this experience. Some places charge students,” Kinsey said. “One of the things we believe in is it’s our responsibility to educate.”