IV Therapy student Clarence Dube attempts to start an IV on fellow student Drew Marino under the watchful eye of current Mineral County EMT Terry Morgan.

MINERAL COUNTY—Five Mineral County EMS students recently completed 150 hours of classroom training and 36 hours of clinicals in order to qualify for recognition by the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians and for certification as Colorado EMTs.  
Four of those students continued their medical education by attending a 32-hour IV Therapy class in which they learned the skills and techniques of intravascular, intramuscular, interosseous, and internasal administration of selected medications. Those four students successfully completed in excess of 15 practice sticks and administration of simulated medications to mannequins, their fellow classmates, and their instructors.
Students must still complete five successful, supervised IV sticks within the next six months on actual patients in clinical settings, either at Rio Grande Hospital, the Creede Family Clinic or as a crew member on a Mineral County ambulance call in order to become fully certified to administer IV solutions and medications to patients on an unsupervised basis.
The IV Therapy class and the basic-level EMT class were sponsored by Trinidad State Junior College. Don Dustin was the principal instructor for both classes with invaluable assistance provided by other EMTs from the Mineral County Ambulance Service including Terry Morgan, Elizabeth Steele, Amy Wetherill, Terry Wetherill, Jimmy Adelman, Dwayne Lewis, Dan Madrid, and Betsey Strawn.