NUEMS competes nationally

An injured man was somewhere in the conference ballroom and he "was trapped with unknown injuries," said Jonathan Lewis.

The very narrow space was hard for the four-man team to navigate, but that was the way the course was designed, according to the 25-year-old junior.
It was also a tactical situation, the participants were unable to speak so they were forced to use hand signals and other non-verbal means of communication.

The team of four Norwich cadets was able to successfully maneuver an injured person through a maze of chairs and overturned tables "in under five minutes," said Lewis, a studies in war and peace major  from Charlottesvile, Va.

This scenario took place at the National Collegiate Emergency Medical Service Foundation (NCEMSF) conference and skills competition from February 26-28 in Baltimore, Md. The Norwich University Emergency Medical Service (NUEMS) attended the conference.

"It was a get together for a number of schools [to discuss] relevant issues and topics in the emergency care field," said Charles R. Coolidge, a 26-year-old senior criminal justice major from Barnstead, N.H.. "We had an opportunity to talk and discuss about differences on campus issues."

Numerous professionals in the emergency medicine field as well as over 30 universities with emergency medical services on campus came to the conference.

Topics of discussion ranged from dealing with intoxicated patients to electronic control devices, or Tasers, according to the NCEMSF Web site.

The conference was centered around topics and situations that are likely to occur on a college campus, Coolidge said. "Certain topics were more specific to [college] campuses."

Coolidge, a nationally certified Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), attended the event for the skills competition.

The skills competition had three events — a medical call, a trauma scenario and a culminating team-building exercise, according to Lewis.

"Norwich [students] excels at team-building exercises," said Lewis "We were not allowed to use any verbal communication whatsoever."

Advanced Life Support Skills team members were able to work together and improve their teamwork skills and emergency medicine skills under stressful situations, according to Lewis.

The NU Emergency Medical Service provides medical coverage for nearly every event that takes place on campus.

"If there is a corps of cadets training event or any resident life event, [NUEMS] is there," Young said. "We provide coverage for everything, 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

A better trained and more professional and proficient on-campus emergency medical service directly benefits all Norwich community members, according to Lewis.

Norwich EMS are the medical first responders to any and all emergencies on campus. Not only does it save students money that they would have to pay for the ambulance ride, the campus team can provide more rapid care than another emergency medical service.

"We provide first response and emergency medical care to any member of the Norwich community," Young said. "NUEMS goes back to the 1970s and we have changed greatly over the years."

While Norwich's team placed fourth out of five teams in the advanced life support skills competition, it was competing against larger schools such as Texas A&M, Brown, Cornell, Penn. State, MIT, University of Pennsylvania, and NYU, according to the NCEMSF Web site.

NUEMS also sent a Basic Life Support team to compete. It  placed 27th out of 35 teams, according to Coolidge.

Norwich's ALS team was comprised of four members of the Corps of Cadets, Adam Weeks, Bernadette Duffy, Charles Coolidge and Jonathan Lewis.
Norwich University EMS also fosters an environment of excellence, according to Young.

The environment that Norwich fosters, both corps and traditional lifestyles, is the reason Norwich students excel in competitions, Lewis said. "Norwich is very unique; it helps in developing everything from our sports teams to our club competition teams."