Crookston High School juniors and seniors and college students, ranging from ages 16 to 24, interested in joining the Crookston Fire Department or Crookston Ambulance can join the first-ever Crookston First Responder Academy. A 10-week program starting on Wednesday, October 5, and meeting every Wednesday until December 14 at the North Fire Station from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. to teach them about everyday emergency medical services and fire operations.
Each week, the students will receive lectures and hands-on learning experiences from volunteer firefighters, the Crookston Ambulance, and law enforcement officials on various subjects and operations that the Fire Department and EMS responders deal with daily. Some topics include fire behaviors, wildland fires, rescue operations, CPR, first aid, bleeding control, radio, and truck operations. “For each class period, they’ll have anywhere between an hour to an hour and a half of lecture and a half hour to an hour of hands-on lessons. For our first night, we’ll be covering basic operations of both fire and EMS, such as how we access our scenes and our patients and what a handover report would look like,” said Program Coordinator Brianna Holmer. “So, if I have to give a handover report to another first responder or hospital staff, we’d show what that would look like. We also cover how our scenes are even safe for us to be there and then familiarize them with our gear, our equipment that we typically use on an everyday basis, and how we do checks to make sure they’re in working order and all in the specs that they’re supposed to be.” Other subjects the students will learn will be to assess possible hazards at a scene, how to assess someone’s condition, and give them scenarios of what to do in certain situations. The students will also meet with law enforcement officials about how to help people with mental health conditions and the mental health of the volunteers and workers, and how they help EMS workers with their jobs.
The academy will run for ten weeks with the classes meeting every Wednesday, from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m., with the final week of the course being a “fun week,” where the students can bring in a family member or friend to show what they learned and what they can apply to their everyday life. “Week 10 is going to be where they get to show what they learned and what they can apply to their everyday life. Like they can show their family how they can build a first aid kit, which is maybe not something you would think of because you think that you can buy a pre-made one that has some basic band-aids in it, but maybe you want to add more to that based on what you learned at the Academy. You can learn how to build a first aid kit for your vehicle, which not a lot of people might realize what you might want in that,” Holmer explained. “Or how to identify different fire hazards, as maybe people don’t know that you shouldn’t put these two things next to each other because they’re really dangerous, but we don’t think about that in our everyday life and how to read those fire hazard warning labels and what does each one of those stands for.”
Upon completing the Academy, the students will receive American Heart Association (AHA) CPR and First Aid Healthcare Provider cards that show that they completed the evaluations in accordance with the curriculum of the American Heart Association Basic Life Support Program and allow them to be a certified CPR and first aid provider in any healthcare or first responder avenue, or in emergencies in their everyday life. Holmer mentioned that the Academy would be a great way to help students become familiar with the department’s operations that they can use to help to continue pursuing a career as a first responder. “It will help with the fact that you’re familiar enough with it, so if you decide to go on for your Emergency Medical Responder (EMR) or your EMT (Emergency Medical Technician), it helps you with that as you have that basic understanding and you know how things work already,” Holmer explained. “If you found out you love everything you did here, we’ll get you in contact with either the Crookston Ambulance instructors and get you lined up for their next class when they have one set up or with the Fire Department when they have their fire training going on for new recruits.”
The Academy currently has about 10-15 students signed up for it and registration is still open. Registration to the academy is free to all students, but the Academy requests that anyone wanting to join the academy contact Program Coordinator Brianna Holmer or Program Manager Ryan Tull to help them have an idea of how many students they have and the ratio between their instructors and gear they need to bring. However, they do welcome walk-ins on the first day but require you to have some form of student ID to prove you are a student that fits the age requirements. If you are under the age of 18, the student needs a parent or guardian to sign some paperwork at the station on the first day for liability purposes. The Academy has no maximum limit of students, so any interested students are welcome to join. The academy does require that the students have long hair pulled back to keep it out of their eyes, wear closed-toed shoes, and durable clothing for safety reasons.
The Crookston First Responder Academy will have its first class on Wednesday, October 5, at 6:30 p.m. in the North Fire Station and will meet every week until December 14. To learn more about the academy or to register for it, you can contact Program Coordinator Brianna Holmer at bholmer@crookstonfirstresponderacademy.com or Program Manager Ryan Tull at rtull@crookstonfirstresponderacademy.com.
