![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2019\/08\/cc-bul-sum19-p23_1-1024x641.jpg\")
Quin Gattey \u201919<\/strong>, Kira Rain \u201922<\/strong>, and Jerrica Bauer \u201920<\/strong> listen to instructions about what supplies are needed in their first responder kits. Photo by Jennifer Coombes<\/p><\/div>\n The following Tuesday, all 19 members of CCEMS gather at the Campus Safety Office for their weekly meeting, where they present and carefully review the five calls from the weekend. Every shift is an opportunity for the entire team to grow.<\/p>\n Kyle Sansom \u201916<\/strong>, Ellie Gilbertson \u201917<\/strong>, and Fischer Hazen \u201916<\/strong> founded the CCEMS team in 2014. Sansom transferred to CC in 2013 from Santa Clara University, where he was inspired by their student-staffed, student-run EMS program. When he came to CC, Sansom learned that CC\u2019s Student Health Center was closed at night, meaning that students needing medical attention were sent to the hospital, then often sent promptly back to campus. Sansom knew that a bona fide EMT squad on campus could both reduce costly ambulance bills for students, and allow CSFD and paramedics to focus their time and energy on more pressing emergencies in the wider Colorado Springs community. He also believed that CC students \u2014 who come to Colorado College for the fast-paced rigor of the Block Plan \u2013 would make attentive and enthusiastic medical responders.<\/p>\n Sansom first joined a volunteer fire department and earned his Firefighter 1 certification, working shifts and running calls to gain experience alongside his studies. The next fall, he worked with Gilbertson and Hazen to build CCEMS. The team spent a majority of their time navigating the legal side of student EMS. The founders modeled themselves off of schools nationwide that have well-established teams, while building a local network in Colorado Springs to access necessary support. They connected with CSFD\u2019s Capt. David Broch as well as Dr. Tim Hurtado, D.O. \u201994<\/strong> and Dr. Thomas MacFarlane, M.D. \u201993<\/strong>, two CC alumni who work as ER doctors at Penrose Hospital in Colorado Springs. Broch, Hurtado, and MacFarlane continue to assist with emergency medical response training.<\/p>\n In the early years, the CCEMS squad would wait in CC\u2019s Campus Safety Office for the call \u2014 which often never came. \u201cAs a new group, a lot of students didn\u2019t know about us \u2014 or if they did, they wouldn\u2019t ask for help,\u201d explains Sansom. Redpath adds, \u201cIf there was alcohol involved, students would sometimes think we would get them in trouble, when that\u2019s not our role. Our job is to make sure they\u2019re safe and provide high-quality medical care.\u201d CCEMS began to work more closely with Residential Life, giving presentations during residential advisor trainings before the academic year. In recent years, the demand for CCEMS has increased as the campus community has become more familiar with the services their peers provide. While students usually call the Campus Safety Office to request care from CCEMS, many students call EMS shift staff directly on their cell phones. As the program has deepened their network, interest has also increased, with upwards of 20 to 30 students applying for the three to four spots on the team each year.<\/p>\n The EMS squad benefits the local community just as much as CC\u2019s campus. Explains Capt. Broch, \u201cNow that the CCEMS team has the authority to determine whether or not a patient needs to go to the hospital through the refusal policy, firefighters and hospital paramedics can focus our time and efforts on the Colorado Springs community.\u201d<\/p>\n UC Health Trauma Outreach and Injury Prevention Specialist Lori Morgan oversees Abbott Grifford \u201922<\/strong> during a wound packing training. Photo by Jennifer Coombes<\/p><\/div>\n A large part of the team\u2019s job is staffing home club sports games and campus events. Redpath was a captain for Cutthroat, CC\u2019s gender-inclusive rugby team, as well as a director of the EMS squad. She recalls a number of instances when fellow student EMTs attended to her teammates on the sidelines. \u201cThey even treated me once for a broken finger and another time for some bad turf burn,\u201d says Redpath. \u201cCCEMS is extremely professional \u2014 it\u2019s so affirming to have my friends and coworkers give me that same level of care that I give to other students. I was proud to be a part of both rugby and EMS at CC. And my rugby teammates are grateful for the EMS squad, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Like Redpath, EMS squad members are involved in student life across campus. Assistant Director of Campus Safety Cathy Buckley emphasizes the hard work, dedication, and remarkable time management that these student leaders demonstrate alongside their various academic and co-curricular interests. She underscores their desire to push the program forward, noting, \u201cOne of our squad leaders who previously worked at a suicide prevention hotline re-wrote and actually taught the mental health portion of the EMT program here on campus.\u00a0Traditional EMT programs devote only one hour \u2028to mental health, but this group understands the crucial intersection of their response to mental health calls in the welfare and treatment of the patient.\u201d For CCEMS staff, attention to a patient\u2019s wellness goes far beyond the physical injury.<\/p>\n The experience that these student responders gain has proven to serve them well down the road. A vast majority of graduates go into the medical field, continuing their service in emergency medicine or attending medical school. Gilbertson, <\/strong>who just completed her second year at the University of Utah School of Medicine, credits much of her success after CC to the lessons she learned on CCEMS.\u201cIt taught me that I can be a leader and really make an impact by serving others. I was always interested in the medical field, but EMS wasn\u2019t on my radar until I came to CC. Now I\u2019m considering a career in emergency medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n Even as graduates go on to pursue their own careers, ties remain strong to the EMS team on campus. Hurtado, who discovered his passion for medicine as a backcountry enthusiast studying biology at CC, underscores the program\u2019s successes and potential. \u201cWorking with CCEMS is a great way for me to give back to my alma mater \u2013 and I\u2019m proud to say that there is a growing number of CC grads coming back to work in Colorado Springs after medical school.\u201d<\/p>\n Recent alumni also have high hopes for their legacy and for the group\u2019s future. \u201cI\u2019d love for CCEMS to have their own ambulance one day … or even a helicopter,\u201d says former CCEMS Co-director Nick Ravich \u201919<\/strong>, knowing that the latter is unlikely. Still, he\u2019s already identified a landing spot: atop Rastall Dining Hall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s 10:30 on a Friday night, and while most students begin to celebrate the weekend, Colorado College\u2019s student-staffed, student-run Emergency Medical Services squad begins their campus rounds in the weathered CCEMS van they have affectionately named \u201cLucille.\u201d In addition to ambulance-grade medical equipment, these student professionals are equipped with expertise that begins with a national…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-14728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-summer-2019","tag-features"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2019\/08\/cc-bul-sum19-p22.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14728"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14730,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14728\/revisions\/14730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2019\/08\/cc-bul-sum19-p23_2-1024x683.jpg\")