Friday, January 30, 2009

I got my EMT-B Certificate from NOCROP AND was 5th out of the 72 that started.




Only 27 finished. Amazing. Just over 1/3 passed the class. But they warned us.

I was really bummed 'cause my buddy Mike C (darkmonkee), the one who has been a BIG calming and learning effect in class, didn't pass the final. Missed it by an iota. That's just not fair, total bummer.

Our primary instructor was Mike Zanitto who is an RN, a police officer with Garden Grove, and a member of their SWAT team as the medic. He couldn't be there on Thursdays due to work, so Janell was our secondary instructor. Both instructors were AbFab, very highly skilled, gave lots of positive feedback when we were 'getting it' and didn't think we were idiots when we were scratching our heads and going, 'whaaaaa?'. They made the material if not easy to learn, at least doable for those who could stay the course. (no pun intended)


All but five students were called up for their certificate, and I felt left out for a minute because Janell hadn't called my name...she said, "I'm getting to it"!
She then told the class that the next five people were 'the geeks' of the class, the 5 people who got A's.
She called my name. I actually got my 90%. DAMN! I was lucky I didn't freakin' cry.
The top 5 got EMT pins, with the top 2 also getting top-of-the-line sphygmomanometers (aka blood pressure cuffs).
Here are pics of some of the graduating class. THIS is why I brought two cameras!!!
Barry and Jackie came to cheer me on, and some of the others brought their families as well. I got Mike a little giftee, and since Janell was going to be the one there, the class got Janell flowers and a card, and I gave her a bear with some prose I had written:

I will remember you…

I will remember you each time I

­ Bandage an owie;
­ Feel a forehead for fever;
­ Put ice on a sprain;
­ Look at an AED;
­ See an ambulance;
­ Hear a motorcyclist down on the
radio traffic report;
­ Show care and concern for
another who comes to me with an injury,
whether physical or mental;
­ And when I pass my NREMT
so that I may also teach others.*

I will remember you…

Absofreakin’lutely.

For Janell Carlson EMT-B Instructor
NOCROP Fall 2008


Ha, ha, GOTCHA Janell! You thought nobody was taking pics, didja!!! (did you know, and somebody tell me if I'm wrong, but she was a runner-up in the Miss California pageant?)

This is the room that we had to finish class in since our school's roof caved in December 15th 2008. CARE Ambulance was gracious enough to let us use their training center. If we had started here, this room would have been overflowing the first day of school September 2nd, 2008. For the next class beginning February 2 & 3rd, there are 90 people on the waiting list for 3 classes.

And here are my fellow classmates-it was an emotional night.






















































2 comments:

JulieVan said...

Hey Lynne,

It's not 27 out of 72 that passed. We had 27 going into the final, and 20 of us remained after the final. 27.8% pass rate. AMAZING! I heard the other years were even lower! =) We're gonna stay in contact, Motorcycle Mom. BTW, I still owe you $10! WHERE WERE YOU!?! I was the last one there with Janell & when I looked around, YOU WERE GONE! =( Hahaha, at least I got my picture with you! =)

Julie Van

JulieVan said...

HAHAH O YEAH, reminds me. I communicated with Thanh about it and it turns out the First Responder course provided by ROP isn't recognized by national registry...it's only supposed to help high school kids get prepared to take EMT while they're in high school. SO... even if we wanted to take the national registry for it...we couldn't unless we take the course at an accredited institution. BLAH, anyway our EMT certification would supercede the first responder one anyway, so it's not really a huge plus to take it, especially since it would be documented that we took it AFTER EMT... so that might even look more strange hahahaha =P btw, First Responder is accredited as 75 hrs...so it's like our EMT course minus 115 hours. hahah =P