Finally, some free time!

Holy... Cow...

When I decided in late January to leave for a month in the middle of my final semester at Post Oak, I wasn't quite sure how I would make it happen. Training to be an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) is no easy task, usually requiring an entire semester of classes. However, the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) found a way to pack a 200-hour course into four short weeks. For those unfamiliar with what an EMT is, the EMT's role is to administer Basic-Life-Support care to people in need. It is the minimum certification requirement that allows someone to work on an ambulance or other life-saving apparatus along with Advanced EMTs and Paramedics. However, this class is not only an EMT course, it is a Wilderness EMT course, meaning that graduates will not only be registered EMTs but also Wilderness First Responder trained which allows you to administer care in remote environments with limited resources.

I was lucky to find this course via a recommendation from one of our guides during the Rio Grande J-Term. After spending months searching for an EMT training course that would fit my schedule, this course happened to perfectly line up with the week before spring break, spring break, and the two weeks of M-Term. After working with my advisor and teachers, I felt ready to take on the task of completing all my IB work and study prep for my EMT in just one short month. I am so grateful to Post Oak for allowing me to participate in this amazing program and for the incredible high school faculty who worked with me to make it all possible.

The time seemed to fly as I read a textbook heavy enough to collapse most bridges while also turning in my IB-required work before my March 3rd deadline. Yet somehow, on March 5th, I was on a plane to Lander, Wyoming to start this incredible adventure.

One thing that my mother was fairly concerned about regarding this trip was the fact that beautiful, tropical, Lander, WY had a nice warm temperature of -20 degrees the week prior to the start of my course. This was obviously quite different from the weather in Houston.

Landing in Wyoming for the first time and taking the shuttle to campus was a surreal experience as I was finally starting to comprehend what I had actually signed up for. Walking into the classroom and hearing the introductions of some of the participants including military veterans, law enforcement officers, and even just people in college made me feel... well... young. Although I wasn't too much younger than some in the course, when I told people that I have yet to graduate high school, they were a little shocked.

The first week of classes was intense. Not only were we working on how to perform high-quality team CPR and administer treatments for complicated injuries like gastrointestinal bleeds and tension pneumothorax. The class also lasted from 8 AM to 5PM every day. Including some days with night sessions that would cause the class to last till 10 PM. Although the work is strenuous and the content is dense, I am loving every second of it. Being halfway through the third week of the course, I have already had two exams a week, coupled with 8-hour clinical rotations in the local ER on the weekends.

Clinicals have been one of my favorite experiences in the whole course. During the introduction to this section of the course, the instructors told us stories about participants who have walked into the ER for the first time and had to immediately aid in 45 minutes of CPR. This naturally made me very excited (and nervous) to walk into the ER on my first shift. Although my first patient didn't require CPR, my partner and I did get to assist in loading them into a helicopter to be life-flighted to another hospital, this was a very exciting start to the day. After a full shift of viewing the CT scans of liver failure patients, caring for overdose patients, and having the joy of assisting with urinary catheters, I left the ER with a new outlook on life and even more reasons to take care of my body.

NOLS does an amazing job of creating an engaging learning environment. Our class time is full of active presentations and our outside time is full of scenarios involving everything we may see in our EMS careers. The fake blood can look pretty real.

This experience has been incredibly difficult yet rewarding. I have never worked so hard. Studying for exams every night and prepping for skills tests throughout the week has been a challenge. However, being a Post Oak student for 16 out of my only 18 years on this planet has prepared me well to work as a leader and a team member in a community. I am so grateful to be at a school that not only allows me to achieve my goals but encourages me to take on the extra work and not give up. I remember being a primary student and being assigned the role of "Bandaid Boy" many years ago. Fast forward to my senior year and I am close to becoming a nationally certified "Bandaid Boy", more or less.

I have included some pictures from my time here at NOLS below. You may notice that I also got the experience of being a patient in the ER after pretty severe food poisoning two days ago. Although it was not a fun experience, it will always be a good story. I will do my best to write more blogs in the future, however, as we come closer to the final exams, I have very little free time. That being said, I hope to return to Post Oak as a Nationally Registered EMT and Wilderness First Responder and I appreciate everyone who has graciously supported me in this endeavor. Thank you!

-Andy Walsh