The Nashoba Year 1 Cadet EMTs participated in an auto extrication simulation in collaboration with the class instructor, Bolton Fire, Bolton EMS, adult students in Year 1 class and Nashoba Year 2 and 3 Cadet EMT students. This practice took place on April 6 at the Bolton Public Safety Building in order to teach students how to properly extricate people from their vehicle if a crash were to occur.

The day included a “simple” extrication, where a person is sick or injured in an undamaged vehicle and must be removed. Then they practiced for larger scale events, involving simulated chemical spills, and complex entanglements in vehicles. The class was able to obtain two damaged vehicles for the simulation with the help from the Bolton Public Safety Departments. A huge thanks goes out to Bolton Services for allowing this simulation to take place.

Bolton Departments come across a lot of motor vehicle collisions (MVCs) due to windy back roads, 117 and 495, so it is important for cadets to know how to operate at these scenes. Matt Bosselait, an adviser and instructor of the program says, “We aim to teach them not just what their role is, but what else is going to be happening around them so they know what it will look, feel, smell, and sound like, so they can better treat their patients. By putting them through scenarios in a highly controlled setting, we are able to expose them to a wide range of incidents that could, with varying degrees of likelihood, happen on Bolton’s roads.”

Bosselait says that the event went very well and emphasizes how important the class is for the students: “The morning of 2019 Auto Ex there was a MVC on Forbush Mill Road where two graduates of the Cadet Program had to perform care inside a car, on its side, in a stream, while the Fire Department took the side and roof off. They built those skills through the Cadet EMT Auto Ex class.”

Bolton Fire and EMS were able to demonstrate how to break glass and use machinery, such as the Jaws of Life. This allowed the cadets to develop a sense of how this machinery is used and get comfortable being around these objects. They were also taught what precautions must be taken in order for extractions to take place.

This simulation is an amazing opportunity for all people involved and is just one of the fantastic things that they do to teach students how to be a successful EMT. The Nashoba Cadet EMT program is one of the only cadet EMT programs left for high school students to take part in. The program has been very successful and has been found as life changing for many students who have participated in it.

The program provides students a year of training, which once completed will allow them to test with the state in order to get their state certification. Once students obtain their state certification, they are able to work on call before, during and after school, responding to emergencies in the town of Bolton.

The program does an outstanding job at preparing students for what they might face while on an emergency call, and are able to teach students a profession that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.