Just Your Average 68-Year-Old College Freshman.
The team struggled frantically. But no matter what they tried his body wouldn’t climb above room temperature. The subject on the gurney remained unresponsive—he refused to breathe. There was zero probability, but they worked on.
Down on the floor it was a different story. As if upon signal, a traumatized accident victim, all splints and tourniquets, rose miraculously and traded places with the paramedic who had been attending her. There were no actual lives or limbs in danger but there was risk and urgency. The students needed to prove their knowledge and deftness to survive as paramedics.
Fire Science Technology (firefighters, emergency responders, paramedics) is one of many certificate programs that can lift a life above the minimum wage. After two or three semesters, the holder of a certificate can be a contender.
Many certificate students go on prosper in the trades, start businesses, create wealth and jobs. Many of them become the intensely motivated, street-savvy, forty-year-old freshmen who ask for nothing but the opportunity to eat your lunch.
The Fire Science instructors were happy to let me hang around. They wanted me to climb on the gurney and take the place of the dummy. They said they would bring me back to life.
