By Lien Hoang
The St. Paul Pioneer Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. — If someone nearby had known CPR, Candis Moore said, her daughter’s father probably would be alive.
Michael McBride suffocated under 12 feet of debris at work last year. Now that Moore is learning cardiopulmonary resuscitation through a new Emergency Medical Services Academy, there’s a sense of homage to McBride.
“I knew this was a good opportunity anyway, but that’s what kind of inspired me,” said Moore, 23, as she took a break from pumping life into a mannequin.
The 10-week EMS program was launched Monday at the St. Paul Fire Department headquarters. The pilot program is training 22 young adults — 16 of them female — to qualify for an emergency medical technician exam. The idea is to get more underrepresented communities in emergency medical services, though the program officially targets low-income groups.
Instructor Dave Page has been working for two decades to diversify emergency medical services, which is overwhelmingly comprised of white males.
In 1993, 80 percent of paramedics and basic EMTs in Minnesota were white males, according to the state Health Department. Of 32 firefighters surveyed, only one wasn’t a white male, and of 183 people who were both firefighters and EMTs, just six were white females and three were black males. The rest were white males.
Since then, Page said, the numbers have remained “scarily the same.”
He’s hoping things will be different with this class, made up largely of black students, plus a handful of Hispanics.
Most in the program agree that a primary, long-term benefit would be to have EMTs, paramedics and firefighters that all communities could identify with.
Tou Vang, an instructor and paramedic, described being able to better calm the people he served when they were Hmong, because they could relate to him.
“It’s like an unspoken link,” Tou Vang said.
He added a second benefit, recalling times when he entered a house where no one spoke English. That’s when his fluency in Hmong came in handy, and he’s trying to encourage other minority groups to join the ranks.
“It’s always important when serving a community to reflect that community,” said Tou Vang, who still gets the occasional 3 a.m. phone call to help with translation.
It’s what St. Paul Fire Chief Tim Butler calls a lack of “cultural competence.”
He said firefighters encounter language barriers daily, making due with gestures or talking to people through their children.
“It’s not enough,” Butler said.
His department proposed the academy more than a month ago. Soon, the city of St. Paul, Ramsey County Workforce Solutions and Inver Hills Community College came on board.
About a dozen sponsors generated more than $50,000. The money covers the training — which the students otherwise would have to pay for -- as well as the $7.50 per hour each student receives as a wage.
It also will cover a second 10-week session for another group of students beginning in September.
As for this batch of students, they should have earned CPR certification this week. Other training includes ambulance ride-alongs, workout regimens and written practice exams.
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