During the summer of 2024, a football player with Friendswood High School was treated for heat-related illness and transported to the hospital by members of the Friendswood Emergency Medical Services team.
While making a call like that during a hot Texas summer may not be unexpected for Captain Stacy Kohn, one of the medics attending to the patient, the situation was a bit of a full-circle moment for the Friendswood High School class of 2007 graduate.
“I was actually a member of the first EMT class facilitated between College of the Mainland and Friendswood High School,” said Kohn, who was accompanied by Emergency Medical Technician Paige Hennighan during the call. “To be called back to my alma mater and given the chance to help out a fellow Mustang with the skills I gained all those years ago was beyond special.”
The Friendswood ISD EMT Program has evolved quite a bit since Kohn was a student there. When Kohn was taking the class, it was held at the Friendswood Fire Station and current Friendswood EMS Chief Lisa Camp, who is also a Friendswood High graduate, taught the course along with her colleague Roy Hunter.
“It’s so interesting seeing all these elements come together, all for the betterment of this great community we serve,” said Camp. “Kohn being there for that student is evidence in action that programs like the EMT training initiative with Friendswood ISD are important, effective and worthwhile.”
For Kohn, the impact of the program she had access to is palpable.
"I have been fortunate to create a pretty awesome career here in my hometown because of the opportunity I was given in high school,” she said.
Courses for the EMT training program are part of FISD’s dual-credit partnership with College of the Mainland. In 2022, the program acquired an ambulance simulator thanks to money from a UTMB President’s Cabinet grant written in partnership with the Friendswood ISD Education Foundation.
More information about these programs can be found on the Friendswood High School Career & Technical Education website.