EMT School House surpasses 2,000th student

  • Published
  • By Maj. Ted Theopolos
  • 445th Airlift Wing
Airman First Class Matthew Rakowitz from the 88th Medical Operation Squadron was handed a coin as he entered the 445th Aeromedical Staging Squadron's Emergency Medical Technician classroom the morning of Feb 5. 
    
The Airman was the 13th student of 29 that entered the classroom. 

Not knowing what it was for, Airman Rakowitz found out later he was the 2,000th student to walk through the training classroom door. The coin was given to him by Senior Master Sgt. Danny Smith, from the 445th ASTS an instructor and EMT School House Coordinator. 
     
This was not the first time Sergeant Smith has done this. He did the same thing just three years ago for Jeff Kitzmiller from the 88th Air Base Wing Fire Department. He was the 1,000 person to walk through the classroom door. 
     
The EMT school opened its doors in August 1998 and Sergeant Smith has been there since the beginning. It took six years for the 1,000th student to walk through the classroom doors. It only took three years to train another 1,000 students. 
     
"One of the reasons for more students is because of overseas deployments," said Sergeant Smith. "Several first responders now have to be EMT qualified." 
     
Besides the obvious medical personnel having to be trained, others do as well which include firefighters, security forces and exploding ordinance detonation personnel (EOD). The school is even open to the DoD first responders. 
     
"We teach National Park Service Rangers and this past year taught 2 SWAT team members from the Dayton Police Department, and more are scheduled to attend later this year," said Sergeant Smith. 
    
"We teach two types of classes here," said Sergeant Smith. "Initial EMT class is three weeks and the refresher class is five days. We hold three initial EMT classes and about 14 to 16 refresher classes each year." 
     
Those who take the initial class and want to be EMT certified have to take the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technician exam and pass with a score of 70 or higher. The national average pass rate for first time test takers is estimated at 62 percent. 
     
The sergeant, a former instructor at the University of Cincinnati, is a computer science guru who loves to statistics and keeps them on every EMT class. The school house holds some fairly spectacularly passing rates. 
   
  "The last three initial EMT classes from May and September 2006 and January 2007, all the students passed - 100%," said Sergeant Smith with a big smile on his face stating that fact. 
     
Sergeant Smith doesn't have to look far for qualified instruct-ors. "We not only get instructors from my unit but from the 445th Aeromedical Evacuation and Aerospace Medical Squadrons. We also routinely get instructors from the 911th Airlift Wing from Pittsburgh, Pa." 
     
The class roster had nine base active duty members and 20 Air Forces reservists.. Reservists were from the 910th Airlift Wing, 911th Airlift Wing and 927th Air Refueling Wing. Students spend about one quarter of their time in the classroom and the other time in the EMT lab completing medical scenarios set-up by the instructors. The most common scenarios are mannequins as patients with heart attacks, vehicle accidents and national disasters.