By James Mayse
The Messenger-Inquirer

OWENSBORO, Ky. — On Wednesday afternoon, the seven students in Lt. Tim Benningfield's firefighter paramedic class were practicing cricothyrotomy -- creating an emergency airway in a patient by puncturing the cricothyroid membrane -- on a plateful of bloody pig tracheas.

As Benningfield supervised, the Daviess County and Moseleyville firefighters took turns punching through the membrane with a needle. Unfortunately, the pig tracheas had been kept in the freezer, making it difficult for firefighters to force the needle through.

The class members joked about saving the poor pig trachea's life with a correct insertion of the needle -- but the training had a serious purpose. As paramedics, the firefighters may one day be called on to perform that emergency procedure on a person who is unable to breathe.

"(You) don't stick needles into someone's throat unless it's a last resort," Benningfield told the class.

In the past, the Daviess County Fire Department had to send its firefighters out of the county for paramedic training. Benningfield's class is the first paramedic class taught by the fire department. The training is coordinated through the department, the Kentucky Community and Technical College System and Area 3 State Fire Rescue.

The class members will be ready to be nationally certified as paramedics by fall. The goal is to have at least one paramedic firefighter on duty during each of the department's three daily shifts, Benningfield said.

"We already have four (paramedics)," Benningfield said. The county started adding paramedics to its roster of firefighters to have "the ability to offer the higher level of care," Benningfield said. "It has been kind of a natural progression for us."

While all county firefighters undergo EMT training, becoming a paramedic is a much more intense process. Benningfield said emergency medical technicians receive 160 hours of training, while paramedics go through 1,300 hours of classes and field work.

Wednesday night, Daviess County Firefighter Ronnie Bobo was preparing for his first four-hour shift doing IVs at Owensboro Medical Health System. Once the firefighters in the class learn a technique, they must perform a certain number of hours of clinical work, honing the skill on real patients.

"I've been an EMT since the spring of 1994," Bobo said. "As an EMT, there are some skills we can do, but there were times when I felt I couldn't do enough" with only EMT training.

As a certified paramedic, the firefighters will be able to administer drugs, insert breathing tubes and IVs, perform cardiac monitoring and administer other treatments beyond the scope of an EMT.

Bobo said he was motivated to take the training by "knowing I could do more. ... If I had the training and equipment with me, I could already get started" on a patient before an ambulance arrives.

Firefighters arrive at a medical emergency before an ambulance "90 percent of the time," Bobo said.

Before their training ends, the firefighters will insert breathing tubes during surgeries, work in the hospital's emergency room and intensive care unit and log hundreds of hours with ambulance crews. They'll do it all on their own time, without pay.

"It's a sacrifice," Bobo said. "It's something my wife and I had to talk about a bunch before I committed to it ... . I had to sacrifice either time away from my family or sleep, and so far it has been sleep."

Scott Smith, chief of the Moseleyville Fire Department, said the class is a way to enhance his skills both as a firefighter and as a county constable. The intensive training has been a challenge, Smith said.

"It's in-depth," Smith said. "We have to work our class work in, our homework in and our clinicals in. There's something to do every night."

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