Moorhead High Schoolers Flourish in Emergency Medical Training Program

The course offers the chance for students to simultaneously earn high school and college credit.

MOORHEAD, MN – Students at the Moorhead High School Career Academy have gotten to experience a bit of what it’s like to be an emergency medical responder – thanks to a collaboration with M State and Sanford Ambulance.

This course isn’t just play-acting, though.

Graduates earn both high school and college credit – due to that M State partnership.

Plus, graduates are immediately eligible to take the EMT certification exam to become licensed in Minnesota and North Dakota.

Instructor Trista Berg says she’s been blown away by the high schoolers’ enthusiasm in tackling this material.

“They’ve been so eager to learn and their willing to participate, which was the one thing I was fearing they wouldn’t be,” Berg explained.

“So it has been a very pleasant surprise.”

That material includes everything from the basics to advanced techniques.

“We get to apply tourniquets, and wound pack,” Berg said. “We get to splint limbs, and stabilize joints.”

In a time when many emergency medical services in the Red River Valley, especially those in the more rural areas, are struggling with staffing levels, program coordinators are hopeful that this will create a pipeline of qualified individuals to fill those employment gaps.