By Mara H. Gottfried
Pioneer Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Tyquana McChriston’s 4-year-old son hugged her after she graduated from the St. Paul fire department’s EMS Academy Monday.
“Thank you,” Michael Lane III told his mother. She’s on a journey to become a firefighter and the boy said he wanted to thank her for that.
McChriston was among six who graduated from the latest EMS Academy. Since the program started in 2009, it was the first class of all women. All are also mothers. The class started with 18 women and the six who made it through the academy are all Black.
The EMS Academy is a program for low-income adults who are St. Paul and Ramsey County residents; the academy recruits women and people of color, who are typically underrepresented in emergency medicine and firefighting. Becoming an emergency medical technician is a stepping stone to the St. Paul fire department because all of the city’s firefighters are required to be EMT-certified.
Training to become an EMT is difficult enough, and Monday’s graduates added motherhood and life challenges into the mix.
“There were a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of sleepless days,” said Christyn Lewis, EMS Academy primary instructor.
Class instructor Brittney Baker credited Lewis with “going above and beyond.” There were instances of class members saying: “I don’t have diapers (for my child). … I don’t have a ride. I don’t have something to eat,” Baker said. Lewis would pick up diapers and drop them off, and come in during his off time to help.
There were also days when daycare was closed or they couldn’t send their child because of the sniffles, and they brought their kid to class with them.
“The biggest thing we told them was, ‘We want you here and participating, whatever it takes for you to be successful,’” said class instructor Kayla Sanchez. She and the class’ instructors took turns teaching and entertaining kids in the instances they joined their mothers in the classroom.
Stepping stone to various careers
Sanchez graduated from the same EMS Academy in 2013, and Baker and Lewis were 2012 graduates. They teach now because “our passion is about paying it forward,” Baker said.
After the three became EMTs, they worked for the St. Paul fire department’s Basic Life Support ambulance service (the city’s fire department provides all emergency medical services in St. Paul, either through BLS or Advanced Life Support ambulances) and now they’re St. Paul firefighters and paramedics.
There have been more than 300 graduates of the program — they’ve gone on to become paramedics, worked in local hospitals and emergency rooms, and got jobs with St. Paul’s BLS division and other ambulance services in the metro area. More than 30 have become become firefighters, of which 16 work for St. Paul. A few have become physicians and many have become nurses.
Monday’s graduates went through 13 weeks of training, which encompassed 240 hours of classroom and skills learning. For every hour of classwork, there’s about two hours of reading and homework, Sanchez said.
Destiny Wren said she found the hands-on instruction the most interesting, including learning how to manually check blood pressure and how to properly open someone’s airway to provide oxygen. She also liked riding along with firefighters and seeing them provide emergency medical care — “getting to see the reality,” she said.
The class learns CPR, basic medical skills and how to work in high-stress situations.
Wren was a stay-at-home mom to her 3-year-old son before she started the EMS Academy. She said having the support of the staff and other mothers in the program helped get her through — they shared parenting and studying tips.
“When you have a toddler, they want all of your attention,” Wren said. “But you have to say, ‘OK, I need to study’ because this is not something you can fake your way through — you actually have to study or you will fail.”
McChriston said she worked as a certified nursing assistant for 10 years and felt the EMS Academy was a great way to advance her career, but she was nervous going into it.
“I’m 39 years old, so not being in school for awhile and trying to study and just getting it all done, it was a lot of challenges, especially things in my personal life, too,” said McChriston, who has 16- and 19-year-old sons, in addition to her 4-year-old. “But quitting wasn’t an option. … I’m super excited and happy that I actually completed something — that’s something I’ve only done once or twice in my life, as far as like my career, so I’m actually pretty proud of myself.”
The graduates have completed the practical part of national certification to become EMTs, which is hands-on demonstration of medical skills, and they will next take a written exam to complete certification, Baker said.
Path to becoming St. Paul firefighters
McChriston and Wren both are applying to become St. Paul firefighters.
Wren wanted to become a firefighter when she was about 11, “but everyone said, ‘You’re so small, it’s going to be too hard,’” she said. She became a certified nursing assistant, though her dream of becoming a firefighter didn’t go away.
One day, she received an email from Ramsey County about the EMS Academy and it caught her attention, especially when she saw it was a pathway to become a firefighter.
“To see other women believing they can do the same thing was inspiring,” Wren said of the class of all women. Now, Wren said her niece wants to become a firefighter and her sister a paramedic.
For McChriston, she never thought about becoming a firefighter until she went through the EMS Academy. The St. Paul firefighter application process is open now for the first time since 2018 and it closes on June 30.
The city is also accepting applications through Friday for the next EMS Academy, which is planned to start in July.
The last time Ramsey County and St. Paul partnered for the EMS Academy was 2019 when participants were part of a young adult employment program, said Ling Becker, director of Ramsey County’s Workforce Solutions department. “Great things happen when we invest in people,” she said.
The recent class cost just under $10,000 per graduate, which covered their tuition at Anoka Technical College, weekly stipend of $270 for 12 weeks and equipment; funding came from Ramsey County and American Rescue Plan dollars, Becker said.
Ramsey County Commissioner Rena Mora told the graduates that their perseverance is an investment.
“You’ve been here breaking generational poverty, you’ve been a role model for your children and for your community,” she said. “… You’re going to be on your way to making a family-sustaining wage … in a very high demand area … and you’re going to help save lives and give people critical medical care.”
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