ALIANNA KYLE: Firefighting has always
been a very male-dominated profession.
And back home at my fire station,
it was very male-dominated as well.
But I just remember thinking like, I need to do it.
And the pure fact that I think I can't do it?
That means I need to do it.
SAM ANDERSON: Responding to calls
is very intense because you have all the lights and the sirens.
And you're whizzing and zooming and squirreling past cars.
RANIYAH MAJIED: My heart drops a little bit each
and every time because you never know what to expect.
It could be anything.
RYAN THOMAS: There's a lot of things
that you see that a lot of people
will never see in their life.
And it's a privilege to be a part of that experience
because a lot of other people will never
be able to say they could, but we do.
BETHANY COYNE: These students tend
to be the leaders of the classes.
They tend to be a good support for other people
in their class.
And they're often our stellar students.
Sometimes when you're not confident with your skills,
you spend all your time focusing on the skills and procedures
and lose the bigger perspective of what you're
learning in nursing school.
So often, because they get to practice those skills all
the time, that's not an issue for them.
And so they can do that.
And they can open their mind to other things
and getting a better sense of the big picture
than the procedures in and of itself.
SAM ANDERSON: A lot of it is using very comfortable language
with them, being very polite and courteous,
and giving them as much autonomy as
possible with the decision-making of how
we're going to proceed forward.
RYAN THOMAS: I think the biggest principle
we have is just respect, knowing that we're
walking into their life.
They're not walking into ours.
And so we have to check all of our judgments,
our prejudices, our expectations at the door and just
take whatever is happening to be the truth
and to be their truth.
And whatever that might be, we're here to help them.
BETHANY COYNE: I find that they bring a really unique
perspective to the classroom in that they
have all these experiences that are beyond the hospital walls,
and have seen patients and clients outside
of the inpatient hospital setting.
And that perspective is really valuable.
They don't know what they're going into.
They have no idea what to expect.
Again, it's very different than the hospital setting,
where even in an emergency-room setting,
there is usually some forewarning about what's
coming.
And so they have to be pretty creative.
They have to depend on people on their team to have their back,
so to speak.
RYAN THOMAS: We operate as a family more
because we spend 12, 13, sometimes 24 hours a week
together.
And even though we might not be on a call,
we're still together.
And we're still there as a team waiting to do something.
And I think having that family aspect really
makes our teamwork more endearing
because we can trust each other both on a call and off a call.
ALIANNA KYLE: A lot of the lessons
I've learned so far in regards to firefighting
and just the different situations, I think,
have really contributed to how I think through problems now,
and give me a different perspective.
SAM ANDERSON: I think nursing school would
be a lot more intimidating.
I definitely think coming from the rescue squad background
has prepared me for the skill set, the health assessment,
and maybe some of the emotional part of it all.
ANDREW BAXTER: Many times, the letters
that I get from people in the community,
and the phone calls, and the emails, they're
blown away by the level of kindness and the service
that they get.
They don't write and tell me that, boy,
your fire crews did a great job deploying
an inch-and-three-quarter attack line on that house fire.
They write and say, I can't believe the care
that your crew took, so I could go back
in the house to get my grandmother's wedding dress.
And that's just phenomenal, right?
ALIANNA KYLE: I find that I prefer doing real-life things
and using my hands rather than sitting in front of a textbook,
regardless.
So I feel like if I'd never gotten involved in that stuff,
I definitely think I would be a different kind of nursing
student.
I might always have my nose in the textbook, which is fine.
And I wish I had my nose in a textbook
more than I actually do.
INTERVIEWER: But you know to use the chainsaw.
ALIANNA KYLE: But I know how to use a chainsaw.