EMT!

I've been meaning to mention for a couple weeks now that Kam has some exciting news: she passed her EMT exam! Getting the license itself required some further paperwork, but as of this past Thursday, she's an officially licensed EMT.

And in a week or two, after she passes a written test, she'll be licensed to drive an ambulance. Way cool.

She says that the EMT license is in some ways really a license to learn to be an EMT. And there are still a lot of qualifications to go through if she wants to be a paramedic or a firefighter.

But still, I'm pleased and impressed with what she's done so far.

Her main paying job is still doing freelance personal computer support and training. But she's been doing more and more volunteer medical-related stuff lately, from teaching CPR for the Red Cross to working with Rock Medicine at local concerts to working with the medical folks at Burning Man. So the EMT license is the next step up from that.

One reason I'm always impressed by friends who do medical or other realtime-urgent work is that I'm pretty much useless in an emergency. I stand there thinking, "I know there's something I'm supposed to be doing in these circumstances. I wonder what it is." And I know subjective sense of time is supposed to slow down in an emergency, but for me it speeds up--things go by too fast for me to react to, and then it's over. I would make a terrible EMT.

Fortunately, Kam is calm and collected in an emergency, and isn't put off by blood and such, which should serve her well.

3 Responses to “EMT!”

  1. Taltos

    Greeting from Auckland NZ,
    Please relay to KAM Paul and I’s congrats on passing the EMT exam.
    Tell her we miss hearing from her.Thanks!
    Blessings!
    Lorie

    reply
  2. Jay Lake

    Excellent for her.

    Apropos of emergencies, a friend with extensive first responder training once said something very interesting to me. He explained that there were three kinds of people in emergencies — the ones who froze, the ones who ran toward the problem, and the ones who ran away. He pointed out that the runner-away have the highest survival rate, while the runners-toward do most of the rescuing.

    reply
  3. Aliette de Bodard

    Yay for Kam!
    I am such a wuss in emergencies, but I deeply respect those volunteers who help us out in moments of trouble.

    reply

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