A quiet night for campus EMS crew

The parking situation here can drive a sane person to maniacal ends. Enter Adam Moses.

Moses is a university Emergency Medical Service captain. It's a position that comes with a parking pass good for one car, anywhere on the campus, any time of the day.

It's 11 o'clock on Wednesday night. Already Moses has 30 some odd hours under his belt, halfway to his usual work week of 62. Sixty-two volunteer hours a week.

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This particular shift has Moses working from 7 p.m. Wednesday to 7 a.m. Thursday.

"I can park anywhere I want on campus," Moses excitedly reiterates. "I park right next to all of the buildings I have class in, and I'll never get a ticket."

The EMS is the first on the scene of any medical emergency on campus. "We get everything from alcohol poisoning to car accidents," Moses explained. "We average 2 1/2 minutes to respond to a call."

The service remains open 24/7 during the school year. At the minimum there must be a licensed driver and an Emergency Medical Technician present to handle a call.

Driving an ambulance is a good deal more demanding than driving a personal vehicle. "The training we give our drivers here is very intensive," Moses said.

He explained that classroom time comes first, with the trainee learning the different laws regarding emergency vehicles. After completing road courses and cone mazes, the trainee gets to drive to an actual call for some first-hand experience.

There are roughly 40 people involved in the EMS at URI. Only four of those are licensed EMTs. A 122-hour course offered at the Community College of Rhode Island, along with some field time, gets you the EMT basic license.

"We've been fighting to get that course offered at URI," Moses said, "but the need is not that great."

Along with his medical volunteering, Moses is a full-time student. A "super-senior" theater major, Moses has his hands in many of the department's productions. Most recently he was the master electrician for Dangerous Liaisons.

It's 11:30 p.m. Moses and his crew of three sit with their feet up on the stained sofas in the dilapidated house on the western edge of campus that is the EMS building. On the wall hang the blueprints for a new EMS building -- plans that have been on paper for years.

"It takes a while for anything to happen in this state," Moses joked.

The four laugh about this and that, relaxed but alert. "We try to keep a healthy balance between family and duty. We like to have a good time, but as soon as those tones go off we're all business," Moses assured me.

It's now midnight. There's very little moonlight. This nocturnal crew is up and ready for action. No paycheck will follow this shift, or the many others they will do. The satisfaction of helping people is enough for our EMTs.

That and the parking pass.