ASHLAND, Wis. — It was a ruff and rescue day at Northland College on Monday.
The Rescue Divas group started nearly a decade ago. It brings middle school girls together to learn important life skills. The weeklong program consists of everything from CPR training to K-9 aided search and rescue.
Those involved with it think it’s a dog-gone good time.
“The reason we are continuing with girls is that they are an untapped resource in EMS. Traditionally, firefighting, paramedics, EMTs, law enforcement, is a male-dominated area; and women can do these jobs, and so this is an untapped resource that we have not–that people have not thought to go after. So, we decided that we were gonna go and make an attempt to see if we couldn’t get more people to kind of get into these roles,” said Erika Kurtz, Co-Director, Clinical Education.
They hope that these girls not only learn about potentially life-saving skills but also what their futures could look like.
“Just knowing this information feels like, good to know if anything ever goes wrong, like I can be somebody to help because there’s a lot of people who don’t know what to do, so it feels good to be somebody who can know what to do,” said Brooklyn Benson, Rescue Diva.
“My brother’s a firefighter, and he got into it in the past couple years, and he’s part of our local department, and he’s really loving it, he really enjoys it, very fulfilling for him, and I just thought, you know, it makes him really happy so I might try some EMT work myself and just see if it works out for me. I think it could definitely be a possible future for me,” said Josie Martinez, Rescue Diva.