[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/EFRTdemo.jpg” caption=”The Emergency First Response Team is equipped and trained to respond to campus emergencies. Photo courtesy of EFRT.”]Ambulances should take about eight minutes between the time the initial call is placed and the time it arrives at the scene of the emergency, according to the Government of Ontario. But eight minutes could be fatal for a person having a heart attack, going into anaphylactic shock, or having any other type of medical emergency.

This danger was obvious to a young Eddie Wasser in 1982. Now an emergency room physician, Wasser was in his first undergraduate year at McMaster when another student had a seizure, and the ambulance took 20 minutes to arrive. A letter was published in The Silhouette about the problem, and Wasser took it upon himself to start Canada's first student-run Emergency First Response Team.

Before the ambulance arrives, McMaster students, faculty and staff are cared for by these student first-responders. One of the reasons it became so immediately successful was that Wasser was able to get Frank Baillie, a practicing physician, on board as the medical director of the service. This gave the service legitimacy, and ensured that the care it was giving was the highest quality possible. EFRT responders have extensive training, and are certified as Red Cross emergency first responders.

EFRT works closely with Hamilton EMS to ensure that care is always fast and efficient. When you dial 88 for Security, EFRT is notified and will be the first to respond to any on-campus emergency.

EFRT operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week during the school year, and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the summer — the only first-response team in Canada that can boast those kinds of hours.

They were the first campus first-response team to be allowed to carry and utilize epinephrine auto-injectors (epi-pens). They are currently the only campus responders allowed to utilize a symptom-relief drug pack, allowing them to treat asthma, pain and angina attacks. They are also currently the only team equipped with impedance threshold devices, which boost a patient's blood pressure, making CPR more effective.

One of EFRT's most interesting legacies is that it has been instrumental as consultants and advisors in helping set up first-response teams at many other university campuses.

So what do you do just after you call the ambulance? The answer is easy if you're at McMaster: You relax, because help is on the way.