Mason Moore and Shawn Graybill
On target to graduate from Texas A&M in 2020, Mason Moore and Shawn Graybill reminisce about how one of the Pleasanton, Texas natives ended up following his best friend to Aggieland rather than his girlfriend to a college in Austin. At StoryCorps, the two chat about the challenges of becoming EMTs.
- [Mason] We went to EMT school through PERCOM, an online school.
- [Shawn] God anybody listening to this, don't go through PERCOM, oh God.
- [Mason] It was really difficult, but we ended up learning a lot more from our first instructor who was contracted with PERCOM, that was really cool. Terry, right? His name was Terry, right? I'm pretty sure.
- [Shawn] Joe Fraiser, man.
- [Mason] Joe Fraiser! Joe Fraiser, yeah.
- [Shawn] Joe Fraiser.
- [Mason] Who was Terry, who was Terry? I don't remember who Terry was. Anyways.
- [Shawn] I don't remember a Terry, dude.
- [Mason] Yeah, but Joe Fraiser taught a lot, a lot, like it was really cool.
- [Shawn] Well yeah, 'cause I mean everything was online. I mean, we just went through the PowerPoints, took our tests and the next thing you know it was like, oh hey, you got a test on everything you know and--
- [Mason] Yeah and so.
- [Shawn] We'd never even seen half the equipment in person, so.
- [Mason] Yeah, so he helped us a lot. Anyways, we went on and then failed our first National Registry.
- [Shawn] Well no, you can't forget about clinicals.
- [Mason] Oh, clinicals! Clinicals, I didn't even think about clinicals! Yeah, so Abilene, Texas, we had to go for two weeks to clinical trials for our EMT school at Abilene Regional.
- [Shawn] Yeah, Abilene Regional and Metrocare.
- [Mason] And we spent our first week in the hospital. It was really rushed.
- [Shawn] Oh, it was awful.
- [Mason] Saw a couple, that was where we started, you know, we saw our first live birth, that was cool.
- [Shawn] Yeah, that was cool. Well, it was our first live birth and a C-section.
- [Mason] Yeah, we got to--
- [Shawn] C-section wasn't very useful to us, it was pretty cool to see, though.
- [Mason] Yeah, but anyways, so we did that at a hospital, we went through clinicals, that was our first time working as EMTs together. We're partners today, we're obviously partners today, so. We're on the truck. But yeah, we worked the clinicals, worked Metrocare and 911 service. We saw a lot of, a lot in Metrocare for the 911.
- [Shawn] Yeah, we stayed with your grandparents for that two weeks.
- [Mason] Yeah, stayed with my parents.
- [Shawn] And all we did was wake up--
- [Mason] Yeah, wake up, go to work, come home and sleep. It was miserable. Except for those two days where we saw my cousin, Braxton, who also lives in Abilene.
- [Shawn] Yeah.
- [Mason] And we hung out with him for a while--
- [Shawn] Took us to a party and left us there.
- [Mason] Yeah, that was horrible.
- [Shawn] Never been to Abilene before in my life and had no idea where we were, but--
- [Mason] We've been there a couple times since then, though.
- [Shawn] Yeah.
- [Mason] Anyways, yeah so, clinicals, failed our first National Registry.
- [Shawn] Failed our second National Registry.
- [Mason] Failed our second National Registry. Went to Lance McFall, you know my cousin, Lance.
- [Shawn] Yeah, went to the cousin in Abilene.
- [Mason] Yeah, it was also in Abilene. He was a paramedic, he's a firefighter paramedic, he works there now and he taught us pretty much everything we needed to pass the National Registry and you know, we went through a couple of books and stuff, but--
- [Shawn] Yeah, I went through a book.
- [Mason] Yeah, that was what really helped and then we ended up passing, this kind of skips forward 'cause we gotta go back to freshman year in college. We actually didn't pass our third National Registry until fairly, it wasn't recently--
- [Shawn] Well yeah, I mean--
- [Mason] It was like November of--
- [Shawn] Yeah, we finished the course in high school and we took our time because of other related PERCOM issues of paperwork and--
- [Mason] Yeah, a lot of it wasn't on us. A lot of it wasn't, so we're not gonna bash PERCOM.
- [Mason] They gave us an opportunity.
- [Shawn] We could, but that's not the point of this.
- [Mason] So anyways, we graduated in November, but we have to go back to start college, so start with your little dilemma in high school, senior year with college. Remember you had to choose between--
- [Shawn] Oh yeah, I got accepted to TU, or you know, UT and that's where I was gonna go because, you know, it was just such a high-rated school, which, it's still a good school and my girlfriend was going there, which also was another factor, you know, kind of follow each other, you know, be close. But then you had Mason.
- [Mason] Shawn made the right choice.
- [Shawn] Then you had Mason.
- [Mason] You made the right choice and you know it.
- [Shawn] And then you have Mason, who didn't do anything--
- [Mason] To be fair, I--
- [Shawn] High school, so. His grades weren't very good.
- [Mason] Hey, hey. To be fair, I got in and I only applied to one, I applied to two schools--
- [Shawn] That was because you killed your SAT.
- [Mason] Yeah, I destroyed my SAT bro, I'm not gonna, let's not say the score, let's not say the score.
- [Shawn] But anyways, so Mason got into A&M, or you got into A&M and I had two little bugs whispering in my ear, one go to UT, on go to A&M and--
- [Mason] And the friendship got the better of him.
- [Shawn] I wouldn't even say that. I mean, it was more of, I didn't get my major at UT, so that was a really big deciding factor.
- [Mason] It's okay, you don't have to lie.
- [Shawn] But that's my story and I'm sticking to it, bro.
- [Mason] Anyways, so we move in, roommates--