Students in the EMR (Emergency Medical Responder) class are learning the skills necessary to serve as a Connecticut certified first responder. Students will not be certified until after they take the state-proctored exam at the end of May, however, they are currently CPR certified. The class has mastered a number of skills associated with basic patient assessment and care for the trauma patients in a pre-hospital setting. Students attend two elective sessions per week, and they also completed two Saturday lab sessions during the term.
 
The class is made up of boarders, day students and one faculty member. Sarah Sprague is a member of the science department and has been learning alongside of eighth graders Kade McCoy, Griffin Hockstetter, and Colin Fuss, as well as ninth graders Avian Song and Henry Schopp. Hayden Graham and MinChan Kim also served as pseudo victims, and made it much easier for the class members to engage in scenario-based education. Hayden did a terrific job acting like a 64-year-old man having a heart attack and a teenage asthma patient, while MinChan was happy to act like a trauma victim and allowed himself to be collared, boarded, and loaded onto the ambulance.
 
Class members are also grateful for the participation of Salisbury Ambulance. Salisbury Ambulance and members of that organization attended two of the class meetings and one Saturday session. Students had a tour of the ambulance and practiced proper lifting, moving, and loading procedures with a stretcher. They also worked on skills associated with immobilization of patients with suspected neck and spinal injuries. Students will travel to Norfolk, CT in the spring to observe an extrication drill. Members of the EMR course work well as a team, and many of them will eventually be eligible to serve as junior members on ambulance services in their local communities if they so choose. In the end, the course will serve to make IMS and the community at large a safer place.