When a call for medical responders went out for the star-studded Gem City Shine benefit concert, which brought 20,000 people to Dayton’s Oregon District in August 2019, three University of Dayton undergraduate student emergency medical technicians responded.
“We were assigned to one of the first-aid tents,” said Chad Jaenke ’20, a biology major from Cleveland and 2019-20 chief of University of Dayton Emergency Medical Services. “We had people walking up to us with heat exhaustion and things like cuts.”
Assisting during the event — which raised funds and spirits in the wake of last year’s mass shooting in the Oregon District — was just one of many acts of campus and community service that earned UD EMS the 2020 Collegiate EMS Community Engagement Program of the Year award, presented during the National Collegiate Emergency Medical Services Foundation’s 27th annual conference in Boston in March. UD EMS was the first recipient of this new award.
“It’s in our mission statement that we proudly serve the UD campus and surrounding community,” Jaenke said. “We are here to volunteer and to serve, and we’re proud to be able to represent UD and to be able to serve the community.”