The open book test begins. You have 75 minutes to complete it. No Problem. Suddenly a classmate begins showing clear signs of distress. It became apparent to several others that the woman is having a seizure. You have never witnessed anything like this and have no clue what to do. What do you do? This was my experience two weeks ago.I decided to investigate since my professor, God bless her, looked as frightened as the rest of us. The Vice President of Human Resources confirmed that the procedure for emergencies in the classroom was left to the red phone and also told me that there are no CPR or first aid prerequisites that professors must know before they are hired.

This leaves it up to each of us, individually, to be prepared for such emergencies in the classroom. If there is the smallest chance that any of us have medical conditions that could potentially leave us unable to tell someone what we need in an emergency it’s important to inform professors at the beginning of the semester. Not to single anyone out. It doesn’t have to be a public announcement to the entire class, but maybe a “hey just so you know…” type of conversation.

The woman who had the seizure in my class was a diabetic. Last week when our class met again she apologized to the class and introduced herself as well as thanking those that had assisted her in her time of need.

There is no need for apologies, she can’t help that she is a diabetic and these things happen. I think everyone understood that and was more thankful that she was OK than worried about the disturbance in our test. Speaking with students through the last few weeks, many people were related to or knew someone who suffers from periodic seizures. It’s much more common than I expected. In the end, we all have a duty to freshen up our first aid knowledge; you never know when you’ll need it. We all need to inform the people we spend time with of our special conditions.

And we all need to understand, should something like this happen, that we all have a responsibility to help those in need if we can, even if we’re in the middle of a midterm.