Seniors train to save your life

Pat Rosacker and Ryan Baue, seniors at LCS, recently joined the Le Mars Ambulance squad and currently are serving as the team's youngest EMTs. They're not on call during school, though. [Click to enlarge]

Eighteen-year-olds Pat Rosacker and Ryan Baue are already in motion.

But it's not their cell phones they're answering.

"Le Mars Ambulance needed for a car accident."

Rosacker and Baue are answering a dispatcher's call as the Le Mars Ambulance squad's youngest EMTs.

Since June, they've been in training. In December, they were handed their pagers and joined the team.

These aren't your average Le Mars Community School seniors. They've been trained to save someone who stopped breathing. They can help start an IV. And they've even learned the basics for obstetrics and pregnancy -- that means they could help deliver a baby.

"If I had too, yeah, I could," Baue said.

Both teens are looking into studying something in the health profession after they graduate from LCS.

Becoming an EMT, or emergency medical technician, was along those lines, Baue said.

"We've learned a lot about the human body," he said.

Rosacker, son of Marcia and Bill Rosacker, Le Mars Ambulance director, said after seeing his older brother go through training, he wanted to try it too.

"And I tagged along," said Baue, son of Matt and Mary Baue, of Le Mars.

The two seniors, friends since middle school, took classes with a few other EMTs-in-training in Remsen through Western Iowa Tech.

Training and tests were challenging, but rewarding, they said.

"We're finally able to be out there after all the class work," Baue said.

Baue and Rosacker had a second group of teachers: the Le Mars Ambulance squad.

"They took time aside to teach us stuff -- we're the youngest EMTs," Rosacker said.

"They were very accepting," Baue added.

Even with all the training, teachers told them that some things you can't truly prepare for.

Working as EMTs in Le Mars, the 18 year olds know that when the pager beeps, it could be a friend in trouble.

"They told us you have to try to remain professional if that does happen," Baue said. "You can't teach that."

But that's really the same for every call they respond to.

"You can read all you want, but you don't really learn until it happens," he said.

One of Rosacker's first calls was for a car accident.

"I wasn't nervous after all the training we did," he said. "And I was with experienced people who made it look like a breeze."

Besides being EMTs, Baue and Rosacker lead a regular high school life. They're never on call during school. They played football together for the Bulldogs, Rosacker is on the courts for basketball season and Baue is getting ready for the baseball season. When they're not at practice they might be working at Godfather's Pizza. They schedule work around their on-call nights for the ambulance -- 12 hour shifts.

"Our boss is really good at working with us," Baue said.

And they're planning to head out to college next year.

"I think I'll come back over the summer and work as an EMT here," Baue said.

Rosacker pointed out that serving as an EMT can be a life-long pursuit.

Joining the ambulance squad, he said, is a way to get involved in Le Mars in a meaningful way.

"It doesn't matter if you're 18 or 60 years old," Rosacker said. "You can still help the community."