Their goal is to be the best part of the worst day of your life, and for the better part of the past three decades, Jack Franklin and Chris Mailes have worked to instill that same sense of purpose in their students. As the organizers and lead instructors of the emergency medical technician certification program at Santa Barbara City College, their formula has been simple: Be engaging, be funny, and exude passion for patient care.
"To keep 100 people at a time interested and passionate, I think we've done a good job of intertwining knowledge and entertainment," Mailes said.
Every semester, the duo — both of them are veteran Santa Barbara County firefighters — teaches students of all ages the basics of emergency patient care: how to control bleeding, how to maintain an open airway, how to assess life-threatening medical conditions, and how to treat a host of other, often graver maladies. When the subject matter gets heavy, Mailes and Franklin lighten it up with jokes and catchphrases such as "death on a cracker" and "one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel."
