Emergency medical responders from across New York state recently visited the North Country for a conference known as Spring Fling.

It’s a chance for people to get together and learn about the latest in EMS services and technology.

This year, however, there was also a lot of fun, as responders got to try a new way of training – in an escape room setting.

What You Need To Know

  •  Escape rooms have not only become a great adventure for friends and family, but are now educational tools

  •  Organizers of the North Country EMS conference Spring Fling created an escape room as a way to allow guests to have fun, but work as a team in a training situation

  •  Responders say the room became hectic at times, but did show them how to better work together and help save lives

If you've been to a conference before, you know the classroom setting is critical.

“It's really important. Always stay on top of the education and keep moving forward with that. Things change very quickly in EMS,” Fort Drum Regional Health Planning Organization Program Agency Director Jonathan Cole said.

But it can also get tedious at times.

“That's the whole thing, because a lot of it is sitting in classrooms and listening to lectures,” North Country Regional Emergency Medical Services Council chair Deborah Stapleton said.

As chair, she wanted to find a balance at the Spring Fling conference in Alexandria Bay between the educational aspects and having a little bit of fun.

“We saw it at a national conference. Somebody talked about something. They did. And we thought that would be fun to bring it to the North Country,” Stapleton said of the plan to find a fun event for the conference.

Whether it’s during Halloween for a scare, or Christmas for some good old family fun, or just a day with friends, escape rooms have become quite the adventure.

“You basically solve puzzles to get out of the room,” Cole said of escape rooms.

However, as the rooms become more popular, you're able to take the fun and turn it into something educational, whether it be math, or like here at this conference, skills training.

“It’s important, especially in EMS, that you have good critical thinking skills,” Stapleton said. “And that's kind of what we were reinforcing.”

Teams had 15 minutes to get vitals, and those numbers were the combination to the lock.

“All of a sudden, it all just starts coming out. All of the protocols, all the training, starts coming out, and you start knocking it off one at a time and doing what you have to do,” paramedic Eric Anderson said.

Anderson's team not only took part, but won with a time of 13 minutes.

“if you get the patient out of the house and into the ambulance within 13 minutes, especially when they're in cardiac arrest, you've done a good job,” Anderson added.

And you've also worked as a team, which is what this event is about.

Stapleton says next year’s conference will have a fun feature as well, with a Trivial Pursuit-style game.