Printer-friendly version

Send to a friend

This Issue 11/19/2009

• All in the Family
• Tears and Cheers
• Swine '09
• Euro-Yo a No-Go
• ¡OMARVELOUS!

It is a positively blustery November evening. Sitting in cramped room 121 of Sansom Place East, members of Penn’s Medical Emergency Response Team sit and wait for a call that will alter the course of the night’s heretofore quietude.

“Requesting medical assistance: injured female at Sansom Place West between 36th and 37th Streets.” Almost instantaneously, the three EMTs on duty leap to their feet. Jackets are grabbed, helmets are thrown on, bicycles are awkwardly maneuvered out of the close quarters in which they find themselves. In under two minutes, they’re off: out of the squad room and into the metaphorical fire.

The EMTs arrive on the scene only to be greeted by the injured female, her wailing friend and a cop. The policewoman has been attempting to control the situation herself, but is obviously relieved once MERT has arrived. Quickly parking their heavy bikes, the EMTs rush to the girl and begin by asking her preliminary questions.

The girl is shivering, blatantly suffering from the intense cold that pervades the nocturnal air. Without hesitation, the crew chief, Sourav Bose, W’11, throws off his jacket and wraps the girl, something he will later claim is standard procedure “considering the blankets at hand aren’t really of much use.” Having assessed the extent of the girl’s neck injury, and considering that she is somewhat intoxicated — despite her friend’s insistence on their having had just two sips of a beer — the MERT crew chief makes the decision to call the paramedics to the scene.

When the paramedics arrive, they take into consideration all of the information that MERT has gathered before asking a few additional questions. They then begin the elaborate process of “boarding” the patient — that is, placing the injured party on a board, then stretcher, all to facilitate her embarkation onto the ambulance that will transport her to the closest available hospital. “Boarding is definitely a collaborative effort,” says Jaime Fineman C’10, an experienced member of Penn’s MERT. With this in mind, the patient makes it onto the stretcher and into the ambulance.

Twenty-seven minutes, three EMTs, two paramedics, one ambulance and one cop ensured that one woman was carted off responsibly to a medical facility. And while the “injured” girl had been merely a stand-in during a practice drill, this faux-call was tame compared to the chaos of Penn MERT’s typical nights.

Founded in 2006, Penn’s Medical Emergency Response Team is a student-run service organization that provides emergency pre-hospital treatment to the university community. Primarily, MERT serves to supplement the Penn Police Department and the Philadelphia Fire Department’s emergency services. With working hours that extend from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. seven days a week throughout the entirety of the Penn academic calendar, MERT provides a dependable and crucial service to the university community.