Experience with Helicopter part of SCC Paramedic Training

SYLVA - The unmistakable sound of a helicopter filled the air recently at Southwestern Community College as a group of students waited excitedly on the ground for the arrival of Memorial Mission Hospitals’ MAMA helicopter from Asheville. After the machine touched down, first- and second-year Emergency Medical Science students quickly gathered around to begin training in scene team operations for loading and unloading patients for helicopter transport.
While some moved up and into the cockpit and asked flight medic Sharon Hinshaw questions about the high tech equipment inside, others moved to the back to participate in a mock emergency exercise.

Kim Anthony of Sylva (right), a second year student in Southwestern Community College’s Emergency Medical Science program, asks questions of MAMA flight medic Sharon Hinshaw as first year EMS student Sherry Walker of Cherokee listens.

SCC Emergency Medical Science student Emerald Booth of Cherokee serves as the “patient” in a training exercise through which she and her classmates learn proper procedures for loading and unloading patients into and out of a helicopter. Other students and staff include, left to right: Valerie Beck of Sylva, Trevor Gibson of Highlands, Sherry Walker of Cherokee, pilot Chris Bader, Amanda Dillard of Cashiers, instructor Tonya Clark, and Phillip Baker of Sylva.

"This is a great opportunity for our students,” Eric Hester, SCC EMS clinical coordinator, said. “One day some of them may be part of a medical helicopter team; and even if they don’t, seeing one of these fully equipped helicopters and talking to the crew is inspiring.”

As Hester talked, MAMA pilot Chris Bader opened up the rear of the helicopter to reveal a stretcher and medical care equipment and supplies. EMS student Emerald Booth of Cherokee volunteered to be the “victim” and under the direction of Bader, a group of classmates strapped her onto the stretcher and loaded her into the machine.

The Emergency Medical Science curriculum is designed to prepare graduates to enter the work force as paramedics. Additionally, the program can provide an Associate Degree for individuals desiring an opportunity for career enhancement. Throughout the five-semester program, the EMS teaching staff provides students with as many staged and real life opportunities as possible.

According to program coordinator Tonya Clark, EMS students “do much more as students and as paramedics than most people realize.”

“This is a very hands-on program,” she said. “During the first semester of their first year, our students take part only in observations. In the second semester, they go into the emergency rooms of hospitals and onto ambulances with emergency medical service personnel in the surrounding counties. Our second year students participate fully as interns in clinics throughout North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. In the operating rooms under the direction of an anesthesiologist, they even administer anesthesia to patients.”

In order to broaden the student’s understanding of a patient’s experience, SCC’s EMS students also observe medical care from pre-hospital situations, to the operating room, to ICU, to labor and delivery, to the cardio pulmonary unit.

“We make sure they have a feel for every aspect of health care and know where a patient goes after the ER,” Clark said. “As I said, most people just don’t understand how much our EMS graduates do.”

Through the EMS program at SCC, students acquire basic and advanced life support knowledge and skills through classroom instruction, practical laboratory sessions, hospital clinical experience, and field internships with emergency medical service agencies. They may be eligible to apply for both state and national certification exams and gain employment with ambulance services, fire and rescue agencies, air medical services, specialty areas of hospitals, industry, educational institutions, and government agencies.

“The job opportunities for graduates of our program are varied and extensive throughout the state,” Clark added. “They are very much in demand.”

To learn more about the SCC EMS program, visit the college’s web site at www.southwesterncc.edu or call Clark or Hester at 828.586.4091.

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