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Glitch blamed for loss of EMT course credit

By Steve Landwehr
STAFF WRITER
Published: October 10, 2008

HAMILTON — A glitch on a state Web site this week made it appear that more than half of Hamilton's EMTs had all their continuing education course credits revoked.

All the town's police officers are required to be certified EMTs.

"These people have not been revoked," Donna Rheaume, a spokeswoman for the state Office of Emergency Medical Services, wrote in response to an e-mailed question. "It was a glitch on the Web site. The site has been corrected."

The Web site has links to licenses for every EMT in the state and another link to their educational records, which allows surfers to see what continuing education courses an EMT has taken and how many credits were earned.

Many of Hamilton's EMTs appeared to have their credits taken away from them by the glitch.

The town shut down its ambulance service two weeks ago, after the state agency uncovered "serious deficiencies" in the medical training records of police officers. The investigation is ongoing.