By: Ryan Duey

Clay County EMS recently certified seven EMTs within the Department as Certified Child Passenger (CPS) Technicians. These technicians are now authorized to install child car seats for community members and are knowledgeable in the transport of children in ambulances and during emergency situations.

Alec Trembath, EMS Director, said that until this latest class, they only had one full-time CPS technician; now, they have one available for each shift. Trembath explained how these added technicians will benefit Clay County.

“We’ve had a car seat program here for quite a while, but up until this last bunch we only had one, maybe two CPS techs, and we had to do things by appointment. So now every shift has at least one tech, and people can still make appointments, and we encourage that. But also, you can just kind of stop in, and odds are there will be a technician there and this just helps keep the kids of the county safe, you know. And then it also provides a benefit to those parents and other caregivers, just on education and car restraint systems in general.”

With the added CPS technicians, the Department intends to host car seat lanes, where community members can drive through and have their car seats checked, adjusted, or installed as needed in the future. To schedule an appointment to have a child car seat checked or installed call the EMS Department.