County commissioners get update regarding EMT class

Melissa Cook, community vitality and health educator from the UW Extension Office in Basin, attended the Oct. 17 meeting of the Big Horn County Commission.
Cook talked about an EMT class that runs from Nov. 14 until Feb. 17. “I’m partnering with Northwest Community College and therefore I’m not competing against them anymore,” she said. “It’s through them. However, I still am pretty much doing the class as far as everything else. People have to pay $1,000 to Northwest to pay for the class I had set up to begin with. “
Becky Mills from Ten Sleep is the  teacher. The class will be online and in person. Those wishing to do in person classes may do so at the Ten Sleep School.  “But for those people I’m targeting, the farmers, the ranchers, the workers who are working in the day and can’t take classroom from the college or won’t, this class is Tuesday and Thursday nights from 6:30 – 9:30 p.m.”
There will be six Saturdays spread out through December, January, and February for people to do the skills portion of the class. These will be held at the Greybull Rec Center. Skills include airway management and CPR.
 For the class to happen, nine people need to sign up. Cook said three people in Greybull are interested. “One that has signed up. One that needs financial assistance to take it. But she would take it if somebody would pay her tuition. A thousand dollars is a hurdle, which is why I tried to make this class free to begin with.”
She continued that the cost is a hurdle for a few people that were on her list originally.  “We have 11 people in Burlington, which is why I did the class to begin with. The Burlington Ambulance has been functioning really with five EMTs on board or on the crew, but they don’t always have five EMTs because one of them works here in town (Basin). The other one works over in Cody. It gives just a skeleton crew for most of the time. All the people that are interested, have 10 that are likely. Most of them are farmers. which is what I was going for because they are in the community most of the time. That is why we targeted this window of time. Between beet and calving season.”   
Cook expounded that after the EMT class is done she has her sight set on doing an EMR class. An EMR assists the EMTs. They typically drive the ambulance. She will be the trainer for this class. To register for the EMT class go to nwc.edu/learning/workforce/program. Search for EMT.