EMT - Basic & Paramedic
Emergency Medical Technician — Basic & Paramedic
It is hard to imagine the scene of a bad car accident, natural disaster or medical crisis at home without an ambulance in the picture. Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics have become a vital part of both our public safety and health care systems. Responding to emergencies, administering care and saving lives is exciting. It also is difficult and stressful. But this demanding profession is always in demand, especially in cities and private ambulance services. Volunteer State Community College offers training for entry-level EMTs as well as paramedics.
Did you know?
- Emergency medical services in Tennessee make more than 1 million transports each year.
- Two physiologists at the University of Geneva used a capacitor to deliver an electric charge directly to the heart of animals, reviving them, in the 1890s.
- Methods of transporting sick and injured people have evolved with history. Hammocks, camels, chariots, mules, wagons and harnessed horses with a bed suspended between them all predate the modern ambulance.
- The first defibrillator used on a person in the United States was a tabletop transformer, a variable resistor to limit the current and two metal tablespoons – with wooden handles – to deliver the charge to the heart. This was 1947.
- The first motorized ambulance could travel 16 miles per hour. It hit the scene in 1899 in Chicago.
- Tennessee has more than 200 ambulance services and 1,300 ambulances.