When the ambulance pulled up to the front door of Carteret Community College, people stopped and stared wondering what the emergency was. Then the ambulance driver got out and handed the keys to the college’s president, Dr. Kerry Youngblood. Others lined up to peer inside the ambulance.
There was no emergency after all, it was just two former graduates of the college returning to donate their ambulance.
“That’s something you don’t see every day,” Dr. Youngblood said, referring to the gift from Mike and Jaime Smith of Crystal Coast Medical Transport. “Mike is a graduate of the college’s first paramedic class in 2001, and Jaime graduated from the program in 2005.”
The 1990 Ford diesel ambulance will be used by the college’s paramedic and emergency medical technician students and other health science programs to create realistic training scenarios involving the pick-up, transport, and treatment of simulated patients on the college campus.
“The ambulance will really add a dimension of realism to the program,” said Hetty Wallace, coordinator of the Emergency Medical Science program at the college. “We will use it to simulate realistic training scenarios around campus.”
Shortly after they had handed over the keys, Mike and Jaime Smith made it clear how important they think the donation is to future EMS workers and the county.
“Our purpose for the donation was to give the EMS students an additional training tool that was not available when we went through our EMS courses at the college,” said Jaime Smith. “There is a lot of difference between practicing skills in the classroom and using these skills in the back of a moving ambulance.”
The Smiths started Crystal Coast Medical Transport in 2007 with two ambulances. Today, they have 44 employees and 10 ambulances. The majority of transports they perform move patients from the hospital to their homes or residential facilities, and also to physicians’ offices, dialysis treatment, and even to the emergency room.
“We are both natives of Carteret County, and we believe CCC is an asset to the county, and it gives a lot of folks the chance to expand their opportunities,” said Mike Smith. “We are really happy that we are now in a place where we can help contribute to this as well.”
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December 16, 2009
Contact: Morgan Smith
252-222-6240
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From left: Mike Smith, Jaime Smith, CCC Trustee Chairman Greg Lewis, CCC Trustee Vernon Hill, CCC Paramedic student Roderick Gillikin, CCC Paramedic student William Stark, and CCC Emergency Medical Science Coordinator Hetty Wallace stand in front of the ambulance donated by Mike and Jaime Smith of Crystal Coast Medical Transport.
