Wareham's next generation of EMTs get start in high school
Alivia Benitez-Gaudette practices on instructor Daniel Pina. Photos by Brandy Muz
Students will use their hands-on experience in the classroom to complete the final test at the end of the school year.
Alivia Benitez-Gaudette takes Pina's blood pressure.
Gloria Jorjakis and Frederic Roy take notes.
Hannah Gropman tests her skills.
The students will also be CPR certified at the end of the school year.
Students practiced real life situations with a dummy.
This dummy, in a car accident, is being assisted by the students.
Frederic Roy makes sure the dummy's airway is clear.
The students check the dummy for injuries.
Alivia Benitez-Gaudette practices on instructor Daniel Pina. Photos by Brandy Muz
Students will use their hands-on experience in the classroom to complete the final test at the end of the school year.
Alivia Benitez-Gaudette takes Pina's blood pressure.
Gloria Jorjakis and Frederic Roy take notes.
Hannah Gropman tests her skills.
The students will also be CPR certified at the end of the school year.
Students practiced real life situations with a dummy.
This dummy, in a car accident, is being assisted by the students.
Frederic Roy makes sure the dummy's airway is clear.
The students check the dummy for injuries.
Trading backpacks for medical bags, some select Wareham High School students are on their way to becoming EMTs.
Wareham High School started offering an EMT course at the start of the 2025-26 school year. Principal Scott Palladino said the idea came from the students themselves following a survey.
"We asked them the classes they'd like to see and for a few years now EMT and CPR has come up as something they'd like to see," Palladino said.
The school partnered with GMEC-EMT out of Fairhaven. The company is an accredited training institution that offers EMT training, along with other safety and medical courses like First Aid and CPR.
Instructor Daniel Pina teaches the students every other day, breaking up the usual four hour courses across multiple one hour classes at the school. The students, who must be seniors to enroll in the course, will be certified EMTs at the end of the school year if they pass the final examination.
The students must be 18 at the time of the final exams, something Palladino said will help them in their pursuits post-graduation.
"We've got a mixed group of kids in there, some kids that want to be an EMT as soon as they graduate and other kids that are in there because they want to be in the science field— and this will be a good leg up," he said.
Palladino often sits in on lectures and said the class will hopefully keep kids in the community after they graduate. With valuable information being taught, he said the future EMTs make the school proud.
"They have the potential to go out and be very productive citizens in the community," he said.
With over 40 years of EMT experience under his belt, Pina brings many stories with him to teach the students. A former paramedic and state trooper, he said squeezing information into one hour has proven to be difficult.
Students at Wareham do more independent work when taking the EMT course on top of regular classes, extracurricular activities and jobs.
"I have to put a lot of information in a short run time," Pina said. "They have to do a lot of studying on their own whereas the adult classes we can have more in class discussion."
Although despite the time restraint, there isn't a lack of learning. The students do hands-on work alongside listening to Pina's presentations.
From CPR to checking heart rates, the class often brings in real world situations for the future EMTs to discuss and work on. Pina said he hopes his words will stick with the students as they venture outside of high school.
"If they decide that this is a career they want to go into, I look at it like— I gave them that jump start. I may not be out there, but, in a way through them I am," he said.
