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Today the Belize Emergency Response Team (BERT, for short), held a full open day event at their Belize City Branch on Sunrise Avenue. They were joined by students from Trident Technical College, of South Carolina, who are enrolled in the Emergency Medical Technician program of that institution. 6 students and one lecturer who made the journey to Belize to assist in teaching school kids about what it is they do and inspiring the future EMT experts. 

Javier Canul - Education Coordinator, BERT
"We're having what you call an open day and basically inviting the public to see what the ambulance is all about and what it entails and unveiling what is going on inside the ambulance once you catch an ambulance. As well as hoping to catch a few people who would like to come into BERT to work as an EMT or paramedic."

Emanuel Pech
"What is the importance of having the public know or be aware of what is going on once BERT or any emergency response team for that matter respond to an emergency for a car accident for instance?"

Javier Canul - Education Coordinator, BERT
"Okay basically that's a big question. First of all we want the public to know that the ambulance is not a taxi, we do EMS which means we do pre hospital care to get people to the hospital alive until the doctor can take over. Second thing we want people to know what we do in the ambulance is not basic first aid, it is more advances stuff. We do more invasive techniques to keep people alive until they reach the hospital. And so by doing this today, we're letting them get a glimpse of a little bit of what we're doing and what we do in the ambulance."

Ted Lee - Programme Director, EMT, South Carolina
"This is out sixth trip. We have a pretty expansive education abroad programme at Tridan Technical College and Belize offers our students an opportunity to see what EMS was in the beginning. We have services here that kind of mimic what EMS was in the 1970s in the United States. We're seeing a lot of very dedicated personnel working very hard but they might not have the technology that we have in the United States but they're getting the job done, they are doing amazing things down here and our students come away with a better respect for what the profession entails and we try really hard to have community opportunities as well. This year with the open house we're also going to be teaching the public a little bit for ACLS class."

"We have a very strict fine educational process in the United States. There are a lot of standards, there are a lot of organisations that govern what we do and being able to come in and help them with the standard classes. The ACLS, The American Heart Classes we help them with that early on and then helped with some instructor stuff so that they would get more comfortable with that so that they could teach here even though we weren't here. And that's kind of the point in given back to it. We've helped with in services to bring them up to new levels and some of the new changes that they run into where they didn't really know how to adjust to them because we had some of that experiences where we have already done through some of the same growing pains and we were able to relate some of that back."

This is the second year that BERT has opened its doors to the public in an activity like this. And according to them, they hope to make it an annual event.