Teens tough it out in EMS Cadet class

11/08/2006

William Kaempffer , Register Staff

NEW HAVEN — Ishar Nieves wants someday to become a city firefighter and hopes an EMS Cadet program, offered through the Fire Department and the Board of Education, will help him realize that goal. Nieves, 16, a student at Wilbur Cross High, is among 18 other high school students who recently started their emergency medical service studies .

If they pass, they will be eligible to take the state and national certification test to become an emergency medical technician.

"Class starts at 5 o’clock, so if you’re here at 5:01, the door will be locked," Lt. Abraham Colon, the Emergency Medical Services supervisor at the Fire Department, told the group. "This isn’t like high school, where you can tell your teachers 1,000 excuses. We don’t want to hear excuses.

"This is a college-level course."

In the hallway, Colon said the tough love is needed because the course work will be difficult, including aspects of anatomy, physiology and chemistry, and the students need to be committed.

In that national certification test, about 75 percent of students flunk the first time they take it, Colon said.

"You will not pass this course; you will not get certified, if you do not study," he told the students.

The program has been in existence for about eight years. Of the 11 who graduated last year, four have since been nationally certified and three others are pending.

Three former cadets have gone on to become city firefighters, and Nieves hopes to follow in their footsteps.

Cynthia Lowman, a career specialist at Hill Regional Career High School, who sponsored six students this year, said school and fire officials try to screen prospective cadets to test their real interest because you can’t sleepwalk through the class and succeed.

The students must fill out city applications, write essays, get letters of recommendation, write cover letters and submit resumes.

"We make them work," she said.

The goal is to foster interest in the medical or firefighting fields and hopefully give the cadets a leg up if they decide to pursue them.

When it’s all done, the students will have completed 150 hours of work.

In this year’s class are: Nieves, Larrisha Washington and Jordan Stacey, of Wilbur Cross; Dominique Douthit and Shakinah Williams, of Metropolitan High School; Daniel King, Freddie Rivera, Nicholas Shafransky, and Liana Torres, of the Sound School; Anthony Lanier Jr. and Toddchelle Young, of Hillhouse High; Fernando Gonzalez of the New Haven Academy; and Trusha Patel, Katiuska Centeno, Stacy Rodriguez, Laura Jimenez, Asha Wilder and Kushboo Shah, of Hill Regional Career High School.