Elon senior Alyson Boyer will spend the next two weeks in Baton Rouge, La., assisting in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Details...
Boyer left campus Wednesday, Sept. 14 to work with Disaster Health Services, utilizing her certification as a firefighter and EMT to assist with medical care. She said she knew she had to help when she saw pictures of the devastation.
“I knew when this happened, I was going to do something,” said Boyer, who is from Washington Township, N.J., near Philadelphia. “I’ve been involved in volunteer service since a young age and my parents instilled in me a sense of civic responsibility, so I felt it was my duty to help if I could.”
Boyer joined the Elon Fire Department during her freshman year and earned her EMT certification the following year. She says her work with the fire department has prepared her for what she might encounter during her Gulf Coast work.
“Every time you go on a fire call, you think about what you’re going to see,” Boyer said, “but it’s your job to help the public. I know I’m going to see things that are difficult, but I’m prepared for it.”
She is grateful that her professors have been willing to work with her to make up the class work she will miss. “My professors have been wonderful,” Boyer says. “My senior seminar professor, Dr. (Harlen) Makemson, said he was glad to help me go. He told me he felt like this was a way he could contribute to the relief work.”
Boyer took an eight-hour disaster training course last week in preparation for the Katrina relief effort. Although she knows medical services will be needed for months to come, she felt compelled to go now. “So many people said I should wait and go later, that they will still need help then,” Boyer said. “But I kept thinking, what if nobody goes now?”