Cop Shop is one of The Signal’s most popular columns.
As much as The Signal staff is unwilling to admit it, many people only read The Signal for Cop Shop. Besides the occasional funny moment (“We’re smoking pot” and the clown loose in Eickhoff Hall come to mind), the incidents reported in Cop Shop are serious and occasionally dangerous or lifethreatening. Clowns and pot smokers may be mentioned every once in a while, but who’s mentioned every single week?
Lions’ EMS.
Lions’ EMS is constantly saving someone in Cop Shop,
and are always the first on the scene in medical emergencies. They help students who have had too much to drink. They may even come help you if you get a bad paper cut because that’s their job — to help College students.
Lion’s EMS has become a staple on this campus and we
all rely on them. They are one of the few organizations on Campus that potentially reaches every single person. We never know when we may need them, but if we do, they’ll be there. Except they may not be very soon.
Because they switched to funding from the College as opposed to funding from the Student Finance Board, Lions’ EMS need a supervisor instead of an adviser. According to the story on this issue’s front page, “the responsibilities of a supervisor transcend the role of adviser, requiring that the individual be an EMT.”
So, because the supervisor needs to be an EMT, the squad is having a hard time finding someone to fill the position. And if no one fills the position, Lions’ EMS will cease to exist. I can’t even begin to stress what a loss this would be to the College.
Holly Heller, the current adviser to Lions’ EMS, said that the state of the College’s budget is to blame for the difficulty in finding a replacement for Heller. Lions’ EMS itself is doing everything they can, including a proposal and letter submitted to the vice president of Student Affairs.
But we can help. If the College community comes together to show the administration how much Lions’ EMS means to us, we could really make a difference. So write to the vice president of Student Affairs. Shoot an e-mail to President Gitenstein. Call every administrator that could even help a little.
If Lions’ EMS is disbanded, their response time of two to four minutes will stretch to the 15 minutes it will take off campus EMS organizations to get to here (like Ewing EMS). That 15 minutes can make a world of difference.
“I think students will be adversely affected,” Michael Delatore, Lions’ EMS Logistics Captain and senior criminology major, said of the possible disbandment. “We’re on campus, we’re able to respond quicker.”
We will be adversely affected if Lions’ EMS ceases to exist. So make it known that you want the group of people who heals this Campus’s hurts to keep answering those calls. And to keep appearing in Cop Shop. Imagine how much worse the reports might be without them.
— Caroline Russomanno
Managing Editor
