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By Alicia Nemiccolo MacLeay '97
A woman breaks her arm sledding and emergency workers take three minutes to get to the scene-from their Colby dorms. The student EMTs monitor the woman's vital signs, splint her arm, arrange for transport to the hospital and administer oxygen. For members of the student-run Colby Emergency Response (CER), it's all in a day's-or night's-work. All students, the CER team members carry radios and medical kits and provide 24-hour voluntary medical service to anyone on campus who needs it. Each CER member has current EMT and CPR certification and serves one to three 24-hour rotations a month. They cover athletic events, parties and concerts and respond to everything from alcohol-related incidents to sledding accidents and flag-football injuries. During each rotation two to three EMTs are on-call and never leave campus. "One is more experienced and therefore more relaxed, and the other one tends to be a rookie," said Jason Gatlin '00, director of CER. The group receives some 80 to 90 calls a semester, most on the weekends. "The worst calls are late at night or if you're in the shower," said Ali Ghaffari '02, a CER member. During the ice storm of 1998, CER worked around the clock at the Red Cross emergency shelter in the field house. Gatlin calls the storm the most difficult medical situation he's been in. "When you work off campus you see more variety," he said. When the Colby Security Office receives a call for assistance it radios the CER member on duty, who runs to the scene and begins medical treatment. Security joins them, and if the condition is serious or if the victim is a non-Colby individual, the local ambulance service is called. Usually hospitalization isn't needed and CER walks the patient to the health center for further evaluation.
There are misconceptions about the program. "Students worry that other people or the deans will know if CER was called for them," said Junko Goda '01, scheduling director. But unless someone is sent to the hospital only CER and the Health Center know. CER members don't get paid. "We're a volunteer squad, so what we do, we do out of the goodness of our hearts," said Gatlin. CER holds monthly mandatory training sessions, says Goda, because "there are things that will catch you by surprise if you just expect the ordinary." The squad has about 30 students, most of whom it recruits from the EMT course offered every Jan Plan. The course is 111 hours plus eight hours for CPR. Each student volunteers with a hospital or ambulance team and must assess a minimum of five patients. Both Ghaffari and Goda are graduates of the class. Goda says she took the course after seeing CER in action and being impressed by its capabilities and being made aware of her inability to help. She is now adept at taking control of situations. "I wasn't as confident as a freshman," said Goda, "but now I have no problem telling people what they need to do." Chelsea Hoffmann '03 completed the class this January. "I was impressed that Colby offered such a course, so I jumped at the opportunity," she said. Hoffmann now works with CER and said she hopes "to gain some experience and put our training to the test in the field." |
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