Riverland will host an Open House/Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for its new Fire/Emergency Medical Service (EMS) Training Center Thursday, Sept 25 from 5 to 8 p.m. in Room C104 of the West Building on the Austin campus.

The Austin Area Chamber of Commerce ambassadors will perform the ribbon cutting and a short program will begin at 5:30 p.m. Speakers will include Dr. Adenuga Atewologun, Riverland president, Bruce West, Minnesota state fire marshal, Steve Flaherty, executive director of Minnesota Board of Firefighter Training and Education, Mike Juntenen, supervisor for Austin and Albert Lea Gold Cross and James McCoy, Austin fire chief. The event features tours and equipment demonstrations is free and the public is invited.

In August 2013, Riverland dedicated 3,500 sq. ft. of space in its West Building to create a Fire/EMS Training Center, a space that once housed the machining program and empty for several years. The Fire and EMS program have worked diligently to create a first rate training center for emergency personnel.

The new Fire/EMS Center has its own dedicated classroom for didactic learning and many features of a real working fire station and indoor simulation props. Other features include:

• Gear lockers-students can practice putting on their Turnout gear as they would at a fire station. Students need to practice doing this and be fully dressed in less than 1 minute.
• 50 PSI cascade filling station to fill air tanks.
• The Center’s mezzanine level allows for Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) to transport patients from a second floor location via staircase and for fire fighters to practice rope rescue.
• A car that has been cut by firefighters with a roof that flaps so EMTs can practice extricating a patient from a vehicle simulating a condition at the scene of a car accident.
• A Full scale furnished house to be used for Search and Rescue. Firefighters put on black masks so they cannot see, and enter the house as if it is full of smoke and fire to search for potential victims. EMTs can use the house to simulate a medical call. The new configuration allows student to drive the ambulance to the front door, wheel the cot across carpet, down hallways and around the corners to a bedroom or bathroom. EMT students also can practice rescuing patients that have fallen in the bathtub or in the very small space between the toilet and the tub. Even getting a patient out of a large bed when they cannot help you is much different than moving someone from a couch or from the floor onto a cot.
• The house will be outfitted with cameras that stream to the classroom so other students can watch the simulations in real time or recorded so students can watch themselves doing the simulation after to learn and debrief.
• SimMan simulators allow EMT students to conduct simulations in conjunction with the house and ambulance. SimMan allows students to hear actual lung and heart sounds in various distress situations.

The new Center joins the Riverland’s Fire & EMS programs’ mobile training units used both off campus at training sites and for our on campus courses. These mobile units include two ambulances, a Survival trailer, a Self Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) trailer, an extrication trailer, a Hazmat trailer, a Liquid Propane (LP) Trailer, a Ventilation trailer, a Tip over tractor, a Driving Emergency Vehicles trailer. They will be completing a mobile air filling station for live burns and a grain bin rescue and rescue tube trailer in the near future. All will be on display during the open house.

“This Fire/EMS Training Center is going to enhance the education of our Fire & EMS students and be a great addition to our new AAS Fire Science Technology Degree program,” said Brian Staska, Riverland’s fire training and development representative. “This will be of benefit to those who employ our students. They will be better prepared when hired and be ready to hit the ground running. Fire & EMS Departments in the SE Minnesota Region will now have a State of the Art training Center in their backyard and be able to utilize it for continuing education and to brush up on their skills in a safe/lifelike environment.”

Riverland’s Fire & EMS Training programs feature hour-based and credit programming. Visit Riverland.edu to learn more about the offerings in Emergency Medical Care, Fire Training Continuing Education, and our new Associate in Applied Science (AAS) degree in Fire Science Technology.