Western’s Student Emergency Response Team Marks 35 Years of Service
Back in 1987, first-year Western student Robert Garland had his sights set on teachers college and his eyes on the road, biking to all his classes.
“Riding back and forth across campus, I would come across medical emergencies, from car accidents to sport injuries or seizures,” Garland said.
And he always stopped to help.
“I had a lifeguarding background and a minimal amount of medical training, but enough to render first aid. When further medical assistance was required, I was always surprised by how long it took for an ambulance to arrive and make patient contact.”
Garland took the initiative to change that, imagining a student-led emergency response team like the one at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., would cut response times, benefiting the campus community and local emergency responders.
It took time, and what he now calls “a combination of tenacity and chance encounters,” but in 1989, as part of the 28th Brigade of St. John Ambulance and with then Student Health Services director Dr. Tom Macfarlane as its champion, Western’s Student Emergency Response Team was born.
Garland became SERT’s first program director. The experience was life-changing, prompting him to forgo teachers college to become a paramedic, and later pursue a 30-year career as a police officer.
He stands among hundreds of proud SERT alumni and is one of many returning to campus April 6 to celebrate the organization’s 35th anniversary.
Humble beginnings, happenstance heroes
In order to establish a student emergency response team on campus, Garland knew he’d need more than anecdotal observations to get buy-in from Western and community stakeholders.
In 1988, the University Students’ Council (USC) endorsed his plan and he recruited a team of eight undergraduate students to conduct a case study, compiling data from Campus Community Police (now Western Special Constable Service), to document the frequency of emergency and first aid situations and the challenges affecting the response times.
He presented the findings to the directors of Student and Health Services, Campus Police and the director of emergency services at University Hospital (UH), making a pitch for an on-site, student-led, 24-hour first aid team.
“The proposal was well received but not endorsed,” Garland said.
But the compelling evidence secured enthusiastic support from Dr. Macfarlane and led to a major milestone: Creating a direct line of communication from London, Ont.’s central ambulance communications centre to Campus Police.
Previously, ambulances responded to calls on campus, searching for a building, floor or room number.
“This was definitely tacking on to their response times,” Garland said. “Instead of responding within four to six minutes, it was taking from eight to 16 minutes for patient contact.”
The new system alerted Campus Police to the nature of the emergency, with one officer dispatched to the scene and another sent to escort ambulances through the closest entrance.
With Macfarlane’s encouragement, Garland and the case study team stayed the course, developing a modified proposal for a daytime first aid team. (It would be 10 years before the team would operate 24/7.)
In the fall of 1989, during orientation, the USC organized a large concert on UC hill. It drew thousands of people, including Garland.
He was close by when a student fell into respiratory arrest.
“I initiated resuscitation before she was transported to UH and she survived,” he said.
A shaken team of USC organizers, realizing the need for on-site medical assistance, approached Garland on the spot, asking him to put a team together to provide special event first aid coverage for the rest of the week.
Garland agreed, with less than 24 hours to prepare.
“Fortunately, the members of my case study group were in nursing and had all the essential first aid and CPR qualifications,” he said. “We met very early that next morning and divvied up responsibilities.”
Using fabric paint, they quickly turned white T-shirts into uniforms and their handmade signs transformed a white jeep into a mobile first aid station.
The toughest – and most important – task was getting enough medical supplies.
“We grabbed a phone book and went through the yellow pages and drove to every local medical supply company, asking for donations or short-term loans of medical supplies,” Garland said. “We hit about a dozen places, and it was always, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’
Discouraged, the team continued their trek. Then they happened upon “some old-style ambulances,” parked outside a building. It was the central office of London’s St. John Ambulance service.
When Garland knocked at the door, Superintendent Peter Harding, who was also London’s deputy fire chief, answered. And fully supported their mission.
“Here’s this short blonde guy knocking on his back door, out of the blue,” Garland said. “All he had was my first and last name and he turned over all the medical equipment we needed to carry out the special event coverage for the balance of the week.”
Harding’s act of trust marked the beginning of an important community partnership in the history of SERT, which operated under the brigade until 1993. Dr. Macfarlane took on full supervision and direction of the team, until his passing in 2007.
“Dr. Tom was such a positive force,” Garland said. “His involvement provided consistency and he was always looking to expand the skillset of the team.”
“Throughout the years, the success of the team has been based on the idea of continuous improvement. Every new program director, every new executive, every new team member has sought to improve the quality of the team, the equipment, the response time and the training.”-Robert Garland, BSc’94, Western’s first SERT program director
From first aid front-liners to emergency responders
Today SERT continues to operate as a student-run volunteer organization, housed within Wellness and Wellbeing in Western’s Student Experience portfolio.
“We’ve come a long way since the 80s, with a lot of growth in the 2000s and we continue to push it in the 2020s,” said Colton Donaldson, BMSc’23, current executive director of SERT and a MSc of Management in Business Analytics student at Ivey Business School.
“We started as a first aid group, and by improving our skills over the years, tiered into London’s response team, becoming first responders, then emergency responders, moving from being on foot, and then on bikes and a side-by-side to now having a truck that was purchased in 2009.”
The current cohort of 40 members successfully completed an eight-step application process, which requires prerequisite certification in Standard First Aid and CPR-C.
Each team member is certified as an emergency medical responder, a level that is becoming widely accepted as a standard for emergency first response teams across Canada. This is an intensive 104-hour course providing instruction on oxygen therapy, spinal immobilization, automatic external defibrillation (AED), symptom relief and advanced first aid. In addition, SERT members are certified in mental health first aid by the Mental Health Commission of Canada.
“Our mandate is to provide emergency medical care to students, staff, faculty and guests on campus – and direct them to the appropriate care they need, whether that’s going to urgent care, following up with your family doctor, walk-in clinics or mental health crisis counselling services at student health,” Donaldson said. “We also work to improve campus safety through education, through standard first aid courses and promotional events.”
Team members, who currently hail from 11 different undergraduate and professional programs, are dispatched in coed teams of three, armed with the skills and equipment to address symptoms associated with acute and chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and allergies, as well as musculoskeletal injuries, finger lacerations and mental health and substance use.
The team responds to 800-1,000 calls annually, with an average response time of two to four minutes.
Donaldson said working twelve-hour shifts, (8 a.m. to 6p.m. or 6 p.m. to 8 a.m.), sharing overnight living quarters and going through monthly and biannual training together helps form close bonds between team members.
“You get to know people quite well, and form a real sense of community,” he said. “We have a lot of people who have had a long career, being part of SERT throughout their years in undergraduate, graduate and professional programs, contributing to the team.”
SERT member Maddy Trim, BMSc’23, a master’s in interdisciplinary medical science student, applied to the program in her final year of her undergraduate studies.
“When I saw the SERT volunteers my first three years at Western, I thought it would be such an amazing experience. What drew me the most was the idea of students helping other students.”
She also welcomed the continuous training opportunities.
“We have so much training, which really prepares us for when the call comes, and we drop what we are doing to respond. Having a chance to learn all these skills and apply them to help someone is really a unique and rewarding experience,” she said.
“Often times when we’re responding, it’s someone’s worse day and we’re there to get them through that and help them access the best support and help that they need.” – Maddy Trim, SERT volunteer
Dr. Sonya Malone, Western’s occupational health physician and SERT team advisor, said it’s often much easier for injured or ill students to communicate with their peers, rather than medical professionals.
“They may feel embarrassed or fear judgement if they are required to disclose their circumstances or personal health information to a university employee,” Malone said. “SERT responders can quickly establish trust in order to provide the most appropriate care needed in the moment.
“In addition to their strong ability to communicate and support people experiencing mental health crises, with their expertise in first aid and a fast response time, they have literally saved lives through the use of their portable defibrillator, EpiPens and naloxone kits.”
Those outcomes are gratifying for Garland, who has remained involved with SERT over the past three decades, offering counsel when needed, and returning as a keynote speaker at annual meetings and conferences.
He credits SERT’s ongoing success to “every team member who has ever served. It’s not just one person with an idea. It’s the result of the members standing on the shoulders of the ones that came before. I had a small part in the beginning and am happy to see everything each team has done since.”