Our story

Who we are, and what we're putting together.

This is an independent alumni effort by and for former members of TAMECT, TAMU EMS, and TAMU Rec Sports Medics. It's early, and most of what belongs here is still in other people's memories and shoeboxes.

One team, later three

TAMECT is the acronym for the Texas A&M Emergency Care Team. It started as a student organization, and two more groups grew out of it in the 1990s: the university split TAMECT's ambulance division off into TAMU EMS, a campus service, while TAMU Rec Sports Medics formed alongside it to cover Recreational Sports events. TAMECT and TAMU EMS are both still active today. TAMU Rec Sports Medics is no longer around, but if you served with it, you belong here just as much as anyone from the other two.

Timeline so far

1976 Student Jim Persons starts the Emergency Care Team with four other volunteers, after securing funding for basic life support equipment. It's kept in a small closet in the basement of the A.P. Beutel Health Center.
1979 More than 40 active members. The athletic department assigns the team medical coverage at Kyle Field football games.
1980 The Health Center provides the team's first ambulance, a medically equipped station wagon. It answers about 500 emergency calls in its first year.
1990s The university splits the ambulance division off from TAMECT into a campus service under Student Health Services, which becomes Texas A&M University Emergency Medical Services. Around the same time, TAMU Rec Sports Medics forms as its own volunteer group covering Recreational Sports events. That gave members insurance protection and met state and federal requirements. TAMECT and TAMU EMS both continue today; TAMU Rec Sports Medics is no longer active.
… Everything in between, and everything since, is what we're asking you to help fill in: crews, leaders, milestones, traditions.

Sources: Texas A&M EMS — our history; Texas A&M Foundation, Spirit (Fall 2015).

What we're building

Reunions. Gatherings with an accurate headcount, announced in one place.
An archive. Photos, patches, documents and stories, organized by era.
A way to give back. Support for the students who came after us, once the groundwork is right. Where that stands.

Help us write it

The most useful things you can send, in roughly this order:

Your class year and your group. That alone lets us start the roster.
Names. Who else was there? Who should we track down? Ask us to find someone.
Photos and documents. Crew photos, patches, schedules, newsletters, certificates. Here's what we're looking for and how to share it.
Stories. The call you still think about, the shift that went sideways, the person who taught you the job.

Start by adding your name, or come talk to everyone in the Facebook group.

A note on memorials

Some of the people who belong in this history are gone. If we build a memorial page, names go up only with the family's or the organizers' sign-off, and there will always be a way to ask for a correction or removal.