'It's a win-win': Wake Tech EMS students take over critical health checks at NCDMV

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- At this point in the pandemic, temperature checks have become routine. But starting out, the NCDMV Headquarters on New Bern Avenue had to stretch its own resources to get it done.

"We had employees who were doing this job--screening employees before they came in every morning. They did that in addition to what they had to do for the workday," NCDMV Commissioner Torre Jessup said.

Now EMT students from Wake Tech Community College are taking over.

"We're taking temperatures and documenting and making sure employees temperatures are within normal ranges," EMT student Kathryn Sprague said.

The new partnership is a win-win for the school and the more than 200 employees at the DMV.

"Because of the pandemic, a lot of our clinical sites shut down, and we had a period of time where students were not able to go to clinical opportunities or they were limited for them. So this partnership been able to allow us to continue offering clinical opportunities for students and meeting objectives for the program and national accreditation level," Wake Tech's Dr. Ginny Renkiewicz said.

Not to mention this provides students like Kathryn Sprague with hands on pandemic response experience that she would never get in a classroom..

"It's kind of cool, because I never thought I'd be an EMS Tech during a pandemic," Sprague said.

But for the future first responder, she couldn't think of a more rewarding career.

"When I got the uniform in the mail, I put it on and looked at mirror and knew this is something I wanted to do," Sprague said.