My name is Peter Wylie. I learned about the Lexington County EMS Apprenticeship Program through a friend of mine who worked at a non-emergency medical transport company. He said that Midlands Tech would provide the education on-site, I would be paid to learn how to be an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), and I would basically have a guaranteed job coming out of the program. I couldn’t turn that down!

Previously, you were a geologist. Now you’re an EMT. How did you get from one to the other?

I’ve always had a caretaker’s heart, if you will. I’ve always wanted to help people. I was able to do that as a geologist – testing groundwater, making sure the land and natural resources around people are safe and healthy.

But I wasn’t able to do that directly. As an EMT, I can be in someone’s home, helping them through whatever medical emergency they’re having. I can help get them to the hospital if they can’t do that themselves.

I already had plans to attend the Midlands Tech program at some point in the future and pay for it myself. But the fact that the county was able to front that cost for me made it easier to make that decision. And it made me want to pay that back to the people of the county.

And rather than going to a Midlands Tech campus to receive your education, Midlands Tech came to you?

Yes. Midlands Tech provided the education on-site at the Lexington County EMS Operations Center for about six weeks, and it was very in-depth. Every day, we would show up at 8 am and have a full day until 5 pm. The morning period was typically classroom time, and after lunch was mostly hands-on time. So if we received CPR training or learned how to do a breathing treatment that morning, we would practice it that afternoon. Practical training like that makes for a high-quality education.

Now that you are an EMT, what is a typical day like?

We get on-site about half an hour before we actually go on duty to get our truck ready, set up our radios and laptop – those kinds of things. Then once we go into service, we contact our dispatch over the radio and start our 12-hour shift. It’s our responsibility to provide emergency medical care to anyone in the community who needs it. We have to be prepared for any medical emergency that comes up and respond quickly and safely. Getting people into the ambulance, caring for them there, and getting them to the hospital in a safe and timely manner is the most important thing for us.

You believe that, when an employer is willing to invest in your growth, you are more likely to stick with that employer and grow with them.

I do. The fact that Lexington County, Apprenticeship Carolina, and Midlands Tech have made this education available and accessible to someone like me – that they had confidence in me coming right off the street – was pretty heartening. I’ve been able to start with a brand-new job, and I have this excellent training that I’m going to be able to take with me anywhere. I’ve learned so much already, and I’m a lot more confident in my skills as a medical provider than I would have been otherwise.

But it doesn’t stop with that. I have other opportunities to expand my education here. In the future, I hope to be a paramedic. I also hope to travel and do some of Lexington EMS’s outreach programs – maybe serve on the Regional Medical Assistance Team or the Marine Patrol. I would love to take the county up on some of those opportunities.

To learn more about the Lexington County EMS Apprenticeship Program and how it partners with Midlands Technical College, watch the video below: