Why this Indianapolis agency is paying people to become EMTs

When Adrianna Finch came into her job at Home Depot one day last year, she never expected to perform first aid. 

She was working her usual post in the tool rental department when a customer cut the tip of his finger off on a chainsaw.

Quick on her feet, Finch jumped into action and helped bandage the man’s finger. When the ambulance arrived at the scene, the emergency medical technician who responded was amazed at her work. He encouraged her to apply to an EMT training program. 

“I was like, ‘Do I really want to work on tools the rest of my life? I don’t know,’” Finch, 24, said. “And I put in my application.”

That decision turned out to be the start of Finch’s new career. She’s one of dozens of people who have completed the Indianapolis Emergency Medical Services’ EMT trainee program. 

The accelerated 10-week program pays students $19 an hour to be trained as EMTs. 

Leon Bell, chief of the agency’s education division, said the program started in 2021 as a way to address a shortage of EMTs. Over the last five years, 150 people have graduated from the program, per spokesperson Brian Van Bokkelen. 

Once students complete the class — which includes classroom experience and hands-on shifts shadowing EMTs and paramedics — they are then hired full time by the city agency, where they’re required to work for at least one year. 

Bell said program instructors also encourage students into becoming paramedics, which is a path to both higher pay and career advancement within emergency medicine. Though paramedics and EMTs work side by side, paramedics often perform more complicated procedures at the bedside, while techs help patients in transit to the hospital. 

But nearly all paramedic programs require some experience as an EMT, an entry-level job that can lead to more. In the trainee program, students range from fresh out of high school to career changers in their 30s and 40s.

But all of them, Bell said, have a passion for helping people.

“Being an EMT is a noble profession,” said Bell. “You take care of people every day with very little thought in mind about what their economic, social backgrounds are.”

Getting EMTs in the door

Five years ago, Indianapolis EMS was in dire straits. 

As a result of the pandemic, retirements and people leaving the industry, the agency simply couldn’t hire enough workers. This shortage, according to reporting by Indiana Capital Chronicle in 2022, was compounded by the fact that 911 calls increased statewide. 

“We got hurt really, really hard because of COVID,” said Bell, “And that caused what I refer to as the Great Retirement Migration of EMS personnel in the state of Indiana.”

The agency’s solution? Attracting a new group of people to become EMTs by paying students to attend class. A 2023 report from IU’s healthcare workforce research center found that cost was a major reason people didn’t complete EMT training. Tuition for Indianapolis EMS’ main, non-accelerated class is about $1,500, plus fees.

In the trainee program, students are full time, benefited employees before they even start taking their class, which Bell said “has gotten more people in the door.”

But while some EMTs move on to other types of medicine or leave the field altogether, Bell said, the agency really hopes to encourage its students to stay with it and become paramedics.

Paramedic training can be costly and takes about a year to complete. But some employers — including Indianapolis EMS — will cover the costs of paramedic training for employees once they’ve been with the agency for six months, provided they’re accepted into the program. Plus, students who complete the training will get a significant bump in pay. 

There are just over 5,100 paramedics in Indiana, compared with about 15,000 EMTs, according to state data. According to Bell, there’s a high demand for workers with that additional training, especially in the state’s rural areas.

“A paramedic can essentially name their own price wherever they want to go,” Bell said. “You’ve just got to find out where you want to live and what kind of shift you want to work.” 

The helping profession

Ian Senesac knew he never wanted a desk job.

For several years, Senesac was a wildlife guide in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park, leading rescue teams in and out of the mountains on horseback when someone needed medical attention. 

That experience piqued his interest in medicine. Although Senesac was intimidated, when he saw that applications had opened for the EMT trainee program, he decided to give it a try. 

“I always told myself I didn’t have the capacity mentally to do it,” Senesac, 32, said. “I have really showed myself that I can do it, through this.” 

Despite his years of experience, preparing to go back to school was tough. It’d been over a decade since Senesac was in college, and he had to “dust off the cobwebs” to prepare himself to be back in a classroom. 

But his drive to learn is keeping him in the game. After his first clinical shift a few weeks ago, Senseac is ready to get back in the field. He likes that no two days on the job are the same, and he has ambitions to get his paramedic license and eventually, become a flight medic. 

“You don’t get that normal 9 to 5,” he said. “You just never know what you’re going to walk into, and so going into that, to me, is just very exciting.” 

As for Finch, she completed the trainee program in October 2025 and has been working as an EMT ever since. She’s hoping to eventually become a field training officer, so she can mentor and instruct EMT trainees just like she used to be. 

When Finch thinks back to a year ago, when she was sitting in Home Depot wondering what the future held, she’s happy she took the leap and changed her career. 

“Sometimes you have to release a little bit of control and just take a chance,” she said. “It’s worth the experience, because look at where I am now.” 

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Claire Rafford covers higher education for Mirror Indy in partnership with Open Campus. Contact Claire by email cl************@********dy.org, at 317-759-0249 or on most social media @clairerafford.

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