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

One team, later two

TAMECT is the acronym for the Texas A&M Emergency Care Team. It started as a student organization, and TAMU EMS grew out of it: in the 1990s the university split TAMECT's ambulance division off into a campus service, while TAMECT stayed a student organization. Anyone who served in either one has the same roots.

What follows is compiled from public sources, linked below, and is a starting point, not the final word. The people who were there will know more, and we want your corrections.

Timeline so far

1. 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.
2. 1979 More than 40 active members. The athletic department assigns the team medical coverage at Kyle Field football games.
3. 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.
4. 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. That gave members insurance protection and met state and federal requirements. TAMECT stays a student organization.
5. … 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). We aren't affiliated with either.

What we're building

• A roster. A real list of who served, and when, so people can find each other.
• 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:

1. Your years and your group. That alone lets us start the roster.
2. Names. Who else was there? Who should we track down?
3. Photos and documents. Crew photos, patches, schedules, newsletters, certificates. Don't post originals anywhere you can't get them back from — tell us what you have and we'll work out how to copy it.
4. 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.