Firefighters handle fires and police officers enforce the rule of law, but only one emergency service is qualified to deal with on-the-go medical treatment. Emergency medical technicians, or EMT’s, are specially trained medical personnel who provide basic medical attention before and during transportation to a hospital.  

One of the many EMTs serving the public, Vinata Kondragunta, is not only helping people with her skills, but is also a senior at Clover Hill. 

Kondragunta is a volunteer EMT who is dedicated to helping the residents of Chesterfield County, while learning, on the job, for a future career. 

“I started because I want to go into the medical field, and this was a good opportunity for me to be able to get into [the medical field],” Kondragunta said. “. . . my bigger goal is to go into the physician field and become a doctor, so this is temporary, but I am probably going to be doing this for a few years.”

Kondragunta has been a volunteer EMT for a little over one year now. Along with the many useful skills she has learned as an EMT, she believes that one skill in particular trumps all: communication. 

“I get a lot of interesting patients everyday, and it kind of teaches me how to talk to a broader spectrum of people,” Kondragunta said. 

Although still a student in high school, Kondragunta has seen her fair share of possible life threatening cases, even performing CPR on a patient suffering from cardiac arrest. Despite this, Kondragunta shares her secret to dealing with this field’s more emotionally taxing components. 

“It takes a lot of time,” Kondragunta said. “I think the more you are in this field [the more] you kind of get used to it, and also there are also a lot of resources and people you can talk to, so over time, emotionally, it gets better.” 

Even though she is required to balance her school work along with her work as an EMT, Kondragunta still enjoys the work she does and has dedicated herself to helping those in need.

“I think the cliche answer is helping others, but yeah [I love] helping others,” Kondragunta said. “But also the people I meet, I meet lots of fire fighters, lots of police officers, and other EMTs that are ten times more experienced than [me], so all the people I meet are amazing.”