TAMPA, Fla. — Students with the University of South Florida helped provide some crucial care during hurricanes Helene and Milton.

It’s through USF’s Medical Response Unit — a team made up of mostly students who are fully certified as first responders. They help provide emergency response and care on USF’s Tampa campus. But in times of distress, the unit helps the greater Tampa Bay area.

Outside USF’s Student Health and Wellness Center, volunteers with the University’s Medical Response Unit replenish their stock after a recent call.

“This is kind of an excellent way for them to give back before they go off to medical school or to PA school or what have you, and to volunteer their time,” said Austin Jared, EMS Commander with the University of South Florida.

The volunteers are also students at the university who have dedicated their time to respond to emergency calls across campus.

“We have about 60 people on our unit right now and they’re all volunteer paramedics, emergency medical technicians, and emergency medical responders," Jared said. "And they all happen to be students here at USF."

Just recently, their expertise was put to the test after back-to-back hurricanes in Helene and Milton. They offered help beyond campus borders to the greater Tampa Bay area.

“It was a big test for us and definitely out of a lot of people’s comfort zones,” said Joshua Szabo, an EMT responder with the Medical Response Unit. “But I think we all came out better on the other end.”

The team served a larger audience than they are used to, he said. 

“We were deployed to multiple shelters first for Helene where everybody went through Irwin Technical College and then the second time for Milton, where we actually had to split our crews into three different shelters,” said Szabo. “Between the Jennings High School, Irwin Technical College and Sumner High School down in Riverview.”

This is a real-life experience on campus, each day. Something Jared pushed for when he was a student at the university.

“When they’re here and they’re responding, they know the reality — both good and bad of what it actually looks like,” said Jared. “So by the time they do go off to whether it’s nursing, to medical school, to PA — they understand the reality of what it is that they’re actually going to be doing.”

The USF Medical Response Unit operates Monday through Friday. EMS can take patients to either the local area hospital or the student health clinic. All care and transport are entirely free.