CANNONSBURG — Clustered against the fence, students at the Boyd County Career and Technical Education Center craned their necks upward and searched out the two specks approaching from the eastern sky.
The specks turned into helicopters and the buzz into a roar. The two machines circled the practice field beside Tom Scott Field and slowly sunk toward the ground, blades of freshly-mown grass dancing in the downwash from the sweeping rotor blades.
When the last whine of the engines faded away, crews hopped out of the copters and walked toward the students. It was about then that their teachers ushered the kids a few at a time toward the waiting machines.
While a helicopter landing alone is enough to get the blood pumping in any kid of any age, these students saw more to grab their interest than just cool flying machines.
Most were students in the school’s health occupations courses, there to learn about some career possibilities. One of the helicopters serves the St. Claire Regional Medical Center in Morehead and the other flies out of Cabell Huntington Hospital.
“I’m trying to expose them to as many health care options as I can,” said Debbie Salyers, who teaches the nursing program at the school. Students in her courses are working toward their nurse aide certificate, which they’ll need in order to advance in post-secondary nursing and emergency medical fields.
“If you want to be in emergency medicine, this is the top of the line,” she told her students.
“This is the best job I’ve ever had,” said Mike Orr, a nurse on the St. Claire craft. But it only came after years of nursing experience, he told students, cautioning them that they’d need a wide range of science and liberal arts courses to prepare them. “You’re going to be working in a place and time where people are at their worst,” he said. “You’ve got to educate yourself so you can handle it.”
“This is a good thing for me because I want to learn all I can because I want to be a nurse,” said Ariel Patrick, a 14-year-old freshman. “This opens up a lot of possibilities for anyone who wants to be a nurse.”
Besides pilots, the helicopter crews include nurses and paramedics. The career field for airborne medical workers is wider than might be expected, said Richard Cyrus, who is chief of the Cannonsburg Fire Department and the safe schools director for Boyd County.
Not just for emergencies anymore, helicopters are used to transport patients regionally and for such time-intensive tasks as ferrying organs for transplant, he said.
“I think I might be able to do it,” said Gilbert Carr, 17, a senior who is enrolled in an emergency medical technician course. “It would be fun, plus I like helping people.
“When the ambulance can’t get you there fast enough, these are the ones you call.”
MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or at (606) 326-2652.
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