A fire truck, ambulance, and several police cars made their way to Carlmont shortly after 9:30 a.m. following a medical emergency on campus yesterday morning. Each respective vehicle had its sirens on.
Shortly before the start of school, medical personnel were seen entering the road behind the baseball field. A stretcher carrying a person was seen leaving the scene from the second story of the U-Hall building before loading the person onto the ambulance and leaving.
Vice Principal Gregg Patner, the campus police officer, and a few others were seen in the courtyard of the S, T, and U hall.
“We got a call that there was an individual who had fainted and they were concerned about that. The people that were there didn’t know the cause, so they called the paramedics,” Patner said.
The scene was visible to students present on campus before the start of class, such as Carlmont sophomore Paige Rouspil.
“I saw many police cars, an ambulance, and a fire truck. I was there for 10 minutes. I saw that someone was on a stretcher,” Rouspil said.
Although Patner states that he has no firsthand knowledge of how the person is doing. According to Cleveland Clinic, fainting is a temporary loss of consciousness caused by a sudden decrease of blood flow to the brain. However, most are harmless.
The person worked for the Sequoia Union High School District and was in a meeting in the U-Hall, according to Patner. Often, meetings with district and school administration take place in U-Hall in the hours before school begins on Wednesdays.
There were no disruptions to student academic time as the incident occurred in a conference room. Further, the situation was handled before school began.
“Other than the fact that when there’s police on campus and people are walking around, everybody’s curious. There was no direct impact on class,” Patner said.
Patner feels confident in the school’s ability to respond to medical emergencies in the future.
“I think we’re really prepared. I’m doing a lot of work myself without campus security on first responder training, and we do weekly meetings where we often talk about scenarios,” Patner said.
Students are assured in knowing that the school works hard to prepare and stay ready for instances like this.
“I feel like Carlmont has a very good ability to handle these situations after seeing this in person.” Rouspil said.
Carlmont remains dedicated to maintaining safety on campus and the ability to respond in emergency situations.
“I think we’re in a really good spot, safety-wise, to respond to situations like this,” Patner said.
*Updated April 4, 2025
