Editor’s note: 17-year-old Emma Jenkins was preparing for a future as an aerospace engineer when she won an EMT scholarship from a first responder t-shirt design competition for breast cancer awareness. She spent the last summer in an EMT course and clinicals. Though she had no intention of turning the opportunity into anything more than a basic education to add to her toolbox, she has now passed her NREMT and will apply for Texas certification once she turns 18 next summer. She wrote this college application essay about her experience. Thank you to Texas State EMS Director Joseph W. Schmider for sharing this essay with EMS1.
By Emma Jenkins
| COMMUNITY RESOURCES: It’s National First Responders Day!
I was sitting in the fire station when the tones went off. The firefighter next to me grinned and said, “That’s for you. Go get ’em, kid. Someone needs help.” The paramedics appeared from their rooms, moving with a calm urgency; I hurried after them. I climbed into the back of the ambulance, grabbed a pair of gloves from the wall, and pulled the heavy door shut. As the engine roared to life and the sirens clicked on, I sank into the captain’s chair and thought, here goes nothing.
The lights flashed crimson and blue”agai’st the bay doors as we pulled out, the fire engine close behind us. I fumbled to pull on my gloves, hands sweating with adrenaline. It was the kind of nervousness that makes every sense sharpen. The medic shouted back at me to put on a high-vis vest; we were heading to a car wreck.
When we arrived, I hopped out of the rig, my vest bright, my nerves brighter. Two cars sat at the scene. In one was an elderly woman; in the other a young mother with three children. The firefighter from earlier nudged me forward, “Well, get up there, go help them.”
I was asked to look after and check out the two little girls while the paramedics went to work on the adults and the infant. As I led the girls towards the ambulance, one of them looked up at me and said, “Thank you.” The words caught me off guard. I hadn’t done anything heroic, just held her hand and guided her to safety, but the gratitude in her voice left me with a feeling I had never experienced.
The rest of the call blurred together in motion and instruction: loading the elderly woman onto the stretcher, listening as the paramedic walked me through every intervention, wheeling her into the hospital, and cleaning the stretcher afterward. By the time I sank back into the captain’s chair, the door shut behind me, I was exhausted, sweaty and overwhelmed. But more than anything, I felt something new, a calm certainty: That was amazing. I want to do more. This is what I want to do.
That first call marked a turning point. Until then, I had thought of service as something abstract, something people talked about more than they lived. But in that moment, with a child’s trust in my hand and a patient’s life in our care, service became real. I understood that helping people isn’t always about dramatic rescues; often it’s about the quiet, steady presence that makes someone feel safe in chaos.
The Ie also shaped my understanding of myself. I had expected to freeze under pressure, but instead I discovered that I could steady my nerves, follow instructions, and take action. That realization gave me a confidence I carry with me well beyond the ambulance bay. I remind myself that if I can stay grounded in the middle of sirens and wreckage, I can stay grounded anywhere. In life, I’ve learned to approach people with more patience and empathy, because I’ve seen how small gestures, a reassuring word, a steady hand, can matter in someone’s most vulnerable moment.
What began as a scholarship for an EMT academy grew into a calling. My ride-outs didn’t just spark a love for the ambulance; they sparked a deeper commitment to people. They taught me that helping others is not a single act but a mindset, a willingness to step forward, to share the weight of a difficult moment, to be steady when others can’t.
I still think back to that first call, to the little girl’s words and the quiet pride I felt afterward. It was more than an adrenaline rush. It was a realization: I want to spend my life in places where people need help, and I want to be someone they can count on.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Emma Jenkins is a senior at Samuel Clemens High School in Schertz, Texas
