DAYTONA BEACH — Senior Brent Curlee was fast asleep when the emergency tone emitted from his radio at three in the morning. He stood at attention and rushed out of the medical emergency club's office where he is on call each night.
"It's always an adrenaline rush," Curlee said. "This was drug related that turned into a seizure and a very serious call."
Curlee plus eight other EMTs and 22 first-responders form the Medical Emergency and Disaster Relief (M.E.D. Club) at ERAU. The club is a volunteer, student-operated organization that provides free medical attention to students, staff and visitors at the Daytona Beach campus.
The 3 a.m. call was one Curlee said he will never forget. He was on scene for 12 minutes that night, which he said is a long time for an emergency medical technician at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
"When he started seizing I had to hold him in position with the help of safety officers on campus," Curlee recalled. "I took his vitals and they were poor."
When the patient woke up he became combative.
"It's not the individual's fault. There was obviously something else going on," said Curlee, describing how campus security officers called an ambulance while he kept the patient stable until he could be transported to the hospital. "We had to decide how to get him the help he needed."
While it was far from typical, Curlee's overnight wake-up call is all part of the job that includes treatment for everything from sports injuries to flu-like symptoms and even mosquito bites and sunburns — more than 200 calls this school year.
"Our average response time is two minutes, which is faster than calling an ambulance," said Curlee, who will graduate this semester with a degree in aircraft crash investigation.
Club members work with campus security, who divert any medical calls to the volunteers.
"We decide then if an ambulance needs to be called right away, but no matter what we call M.E.D. club and campus safety officers," said Mitchell Widham, operations manager of the campus safety and security department.
"They are just remarkable young students that contribute so much to the university I can't say enough about them," Widham added. "They go to school full time, many of them are in ROTC, they have jobs outside of campus and they still find the time to volunteer for no compensation. They just care about their fellow man and their fellow student."
Club members have also found a spirit of camaraderie in serving their fellow students.
"We are almost like a fraternity or a sorority," Curlee said, pointing out that there are women in the club. "We've all become really good friends, and you'll often find us all just hanging out here in the office and going to calls when we aren't on shift."
Curlee said it's amazing how they can all go from goofing off together to rushing off to a scene at a moment's notice.
"Sometimes we will go weeks without a call and then we'll get three calls in one day," said senior club president and EMT Jake Sonzgni. "It's very sporadic."
The volunteers have the time to get their homework done together in the office during the days when they have a low or nonexistent call volume. The office is equipped with blow-up mattresses for volunteers who are on call at night and they have a storage unit with dorm beds.
The club started as an interest group in 2005 and became a full emergency response team in 2009. They have their own Kubota tractor, which is equipped with all the standard equipment for basic life support.
"Everything you would find in an ambulance, you'll find in here," Sonzgni said. "Sometimes (the calls are) just students that are away from home for the first time and don't know what to do. We are also called to some peoples' worst days, so we are always trying to be happy and nice, trying our best for a positive outcome."
The student-run crew all maintain national and state certification in basic life support. The EMTs help to teach the first-responder class on campus, which is where they get many of their recruits. Those who want to become an EMT need 250 hours of training and class time before taking the certification test. Sonzgni said the club offers an EMT scholarship because the test costs around $2,500.
Even though the school isn't geared toward the medical field, the members of the club have come to love it and plan on keeping up their certification so they can volunteer in the future.
"When you think of Embry-Riddle, you don't think medical," said Curlee. "But this is hands down one of my favorite things in college."
Junior EMT Connor Black, who is studying aeronautics and homeland security, said he plans to continue volunteering.
"I don't want this to be my profession forever. It's like a hobby for me," said Black who plans to join the military after graduation. "Emergency response was a hidden passion I didn't know I had. I just love this."