The Charlottesville-Albemarle Rescue Squad station sits on the 250-east Bypass, right next to the skate park. In fact, skaters have been known to walk up to the door and ask for medical attention after taking a fall.
At any minute, however, an otherwise calm afternoon of washing cars, doing homework and attending to skaters can be interrupted by the two-tone call to respond to an emergency situation.
For most college students, a life-or-death decision is where to go for dinner, whether to withdraw from calculus or what to wear to a date function.
For students who volunteer as emergency medical technicians, a life-or-death decision means exactly what it says.
"That's why you do rescue squad - to go help out when life or death are on the line," third-year College student Kristin Paccione said.
Not all of the volunteers at the CARS are students. But those who are, are held to the same high standards as their adult counterparts.
Students are asked to give the organization at least a two-year commitment.
Paccione and her twin sister Rachel, also a student EMT, agreed that the commitment is worth it.
"It's a big time commitment," Rachel Paccione said. "Getting the motivation to get your EMT takes some effort, but it's the most rewarding aspect of my life."
From here, the Paccione sisters said they plan to become doctors and volunteering as an EMT gives them invaluable hands-on experience.
"A lot of people are scared to put the time in," Kristin Paccione said. "It's not only allowed me to work on the rescue squad, it's opened a lot of other doors. I would expect to walk into my pre-med classes and see a lot of people from rescue squad, but I don't."
CARS director Dayton Haugh, who has been working with the squad since 1974, said that while many student volunteers want eventually to become doctors, that isn't always true.
"I still get a lot of benefits from being an EMT," third-year Engineering student Scott Rein said. "I'm a better engineer because I'm here. You learn to work with people, to solve problems and how to work under stressful circumstances where the consequences could be serious."
CARS volunteers all are expected to work at least one 12-hour shift every week, and a 24-hour shift every six weeks .
According to the Pacciones, the time commitment required on the job is an issue for those involved, but not one that cannot be managed with a little planning.
"You go to bed earlier, because you know you have to get up," Rachel Pacciones said.
"A lot of students on my crew don't have Thursday classes," said Kristin Paccione, who works on a night crew. "You end up sleeping the next day."
Yet the time commitment is not the only difficult aspect of being a student EMT - there also is the pressure built in with the stressful circumstances.
Volunteers at the CARS are expected to deal with traumatic situations in the same way adults with more training would respond.
"People look at you and think you're too young to be doing the work you're able to do," Rachel Paccione said. "I've experienced a lot since I first started running."
Both sisters said they've been in upsetting situations, but also have learned to deal with them.
"In high school, I helped deliver a baby," Rachel Paccione said. "It was more exciting than upsetting. Cardiac arrest used to shake me up. Now it doesn't even faze me because I've seen so many."
Twelve-hour shifts at the rescue center run from 6:30 to 6:30, morning or night. A typical shift begins with checking all of the equipment and washing the inside and outside of the bright orange ambulances, a color the industry calls "German red."
But no one ever is "off duty."
All of the members wear radios at all times. The radios let them know, with a coded pattern of beeps, if a call has come in and whether their crew has been called to respond to it.
When a call comes in, the volunteers head for their truck and respond to the call, take the patient to the hospital, fill out the necessary paperwork and then wait for the whole process to repeat itself again.
Unlike the rescue crews that often are seen on television dramas, no frantic running exists - no yelling and no panic.
Rein explained that one of the first rules of being an EMT is to remain calm at all times, even when the extreme pressure of the moment is on.
"'No running' is one of our rules," Rein said. "When you start running, you get hurt."
In addition to remaining calm on the job, Rachel Paccione said EMTs never give up.
"For a lot of the cardiac arrests, you get there and they're basically dead because they have no heartbeat," she said. "But you do everything in your power. You're working on them the whole time."
And when a call is over, it's time to relax - and wait.
The crews keep up a running banter between calls, eat food, watch television and do their laundry, a practice that leads to each crew eventually taking on its own personality, according to Rein.
The night shift members can even sleep in one of two rooms - one labeled "snoring," the other "non-snoring."
But the second the radio goes off, they shift into work-mode, instantly, and without any hesitation.
"We're a volunteer organization, but on call there's no question that you're absolutely professional," Rein said.
CARS is a fully-equipped rescue squad, with a technical rescue truck, an award-winning dive-rescue team, two heavy rescue trucks and a bike rescue team - all of which are ready for action at any time.
"The bike team is used for football games, move-in day, etc.," Rein said. "It's a lot easier to get through the crowds on a bike."
According to Rein, the bike team has to deal with people with bee allergies, parents who have injured themselves lifting boxes or people falling and injuring themselves.
And the squad's abilities do not end there.
The CARS also is equipped to rescue people trapped in wrecked vehicles. Numerous mangled cars and trucks overturned outside of the rescue station testify to the training for this particular skill.
In each area, Haugh explained that students are a vital part of the volunteer organization.
"They give us a bunch of people who are energetic and motivated to take care of patients," Haugh said. "They help keep it alive."
Most student volunteers are basic level EMTs, a job requiring a minimum of 110 hours of training plus 10 additional hours of hospital observation.
From there, applicants go through a two-month on-site observation period, followed by a probationary period lasting an average of six months before being released to care for a patient one-on-one.
"It's usually a six to nine month period before you feel comfortable being responsible for somebody," Haugh said.
And according to Rachel Paccione, once you gain the responsibility of helping to save human lives, the experience is invaluable.
"There are so many other things I could have chosen to fill up my Fridays," she said. "When you really enjoy something you make the time for it"
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