Georgetown-Scott County EMS (GSCEMS) offers a range of classes for the community, as well as those who may want to pursue a career in the field.
“We do all different kinds of classes,” said GSCEMS Director Chris Runyon. “We offer CPR, First Aid (and) Stop the Bleed.”
CPR classes are offered for certification, or there is a “friends and family” CPR class which is free to the community, said Internal Training Coordinator Matt Martin.
“This year, we’re on track to being close to 800 to 1,000 laypeople in the Scott County community (in CPR classes),” Martin said.
As far as CPR, Martin believes the more people who know CPR, the more those in the community can make a difference, he said.
“For every minute that goes by that the brain is not being perfused by compressions, 10 percent of that brain is dying,” Martin said. “So, if you think, somebody that has no compressions for 10 minutes, that is 100 percent braindead.
“So, if we can teach the community laypersons CPR, they can do CPR until we show up. So, that is one thing that has been a tremendous increase in survival of cardiac arrest.”
Certification classes cost roughly $65.
Those wishing to gain career experience or greater knowledge of what goes on may enter an EMT, Advanced EMT or Paramedic class, as well. Those classes range in cost and are offered between GSCEMS and BCTC.
The EMT class runs for four months whereas the paramedic class is nine months, said Paramedic Education Coordinator John Orsterman. The Advanced EMT class goes for roughly five months.
“We will be teaching a national-based curriculum,” Oesterman said. “There are going to be things that we teach about that are not skills we do here, but the advantage to the student is learning those broad skills beyond what we do is maybe one day they don’t work for us and they want to work somewhere else, they’ll already be introduced to concepts.”
GSCEMS just wrapped up their first Advanced EMT class, he said.
“The advanced EMT is kind of a newer certification level that is definitely seeing more and more adoption in agencies, because there is a paramedic staffing shortage,” Oesterman said. “The advanced EMT is an advanced life support provider that can do some things. It’s really a hat tip to our board of EMS that the scope of practice for the advanced EMTs in Kentucky is more broad than the curriculums designed to teach advanced EMT. So, we have to have supplemental content for those students.”
Students will learn in the class and in the field, he said. They will have class, lab and internship time.
To learn more about how to get involved in those classes, check out GSCEMS on Facebook, online or call the station at 502-863-7841 and ask for Martin or Oesterman.
EMS week begins May 21 and wraps up May 26 with an awards ceremony at Scott County Public Library.
Throughout the week, “(Administrative) staff will cook dinner for the crews, kind of do their chores and help them out a little bit,” Runyon said. “(It’s) kind of nice to be recognized.”
Awards slated to be given out are: EMT of the Year, Paramedic of the Year, Officer of the Year, 110 percent Award, Employee Choice Award and Best Crew of the Year.
