6 from area complete paramedic training

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George Snyder

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Photo shows from left, Jayna L. Vilsack of Niles, Joseph R. Lane of Canfield, Nicole A. Kelly of Boardman, Jason M. Fenstermaker of Bristol, Barbara A. Robinson of Vienna, and Jodi E. Gearhart of Mineral Ridge.

By Ed Runyan

Paramedics do much of the same work as emergency room personnel — but do it ‘going 55 miles per hour.’

HOWLAND — George Snyder says it takes a different type of person to want to be a paramedic.

For one thing, they are not in it for the money because it pays only $9 and $15 per hour, despite the demanding year of training required to be certified.

Second, it takes a special kind of person to jump into an ambulance and head straight toward people having one of the worst days of their lives — victims of car accidents and drownings, kids with serious injuries, people suffering heart attacks and strokes.

But there are people who thrive on it — people like Jason Fenstermaker of Bristol Township, a 14-year veteran of the Bristol Fire Department who has served as an emergency medical technician most of that time. He now has the title of paramedic.

“When I get on scene, I want to be the guy who can take what’s wrong and make it better,” he said Friday during commencement ceremonies for his paramedic training. “That’s where I’m the most comfortable, at an emergency or shooting.”

Fenstermaker, a father of three who also works for Rural Metro Ambulance of Youngstown, said talking to a reporter makes him more nervous than coping with a medical emergency.

Staying calm “comes from realizing if you’re going to freak out, that’s not going to help anybody,” he said. “After it’s over, you can be nervous or whatever.”

Fenstermaker was one of six area residents who graduated from the Forum Health Trumbull Memorial Hospital Institute for Pre-Hospital Care. The ceremony was held at the Avalon Inn Grand Pavilion.

Barbara Robinson of Vienna, a mother of an 8-year-old son, said she took the training to become an EMT four years ago because “emergencies kept coming up, and I was always the calm one.”

Four years of being the lower-ranking person in the ambulance making less money made her wish to “do more,” she said.

So at a cost of about $3,000 out of her own pocket and an eight-hour class per week and an additional 20 to 40 hours per week of clinical work in an ambulance or hospital, she learned more.

Now she can read a cardiac monitor and knows what kinds of drugs are used for various problems and how much to give.

Snyder calls the training “demanding.”

Robinson said Snyder taught the class the information everyone needed to pass their standardized test as well as practical applications they need to do their jobs every day.

Robinson and Snyder say being a paramedic is a huge responsibility.

“We are the people out in the trenches who are the first people there. We are the ones who can make a difference,” he said, adding that paramedics are using many of the same life-saving techniques being employed by medical personnel at the hospital.

The only difference is, “We do it going 55 miles per hour down the highway,” he said.

Snyder is also assistant fire chief with the Burghill-Vernon Fire Department.

Snyder said the job of EMT and paramedic have evolved over the past 40 years, starting with the television show “Emergency!” which debuted in 1972. It showed, and influenced, the roles of ambulance workers and hospitals.

“That was really the beginning of it,” Snyder said of the EMT/paramedic field.

Today, many paramedics are employed in hospital emergency rooms, Snyder said, because they are well-trained in skills such as starting intravenous therapy and triage, which is the process of prioritizing patients based on the severity of their condition.

Before the “Emergency!” era, ambulance workers were little more than attendants who tossed a patient in the vehicle and brought them to the hospital. But with today’s training, paramedics have many other options available besides ambulance work.

runyan@vindy.com