As a nursing major at the University of New Hampshire, Courtney Ordway hated the sight of blood. So she traded in her scrubs for Shakespeare and became an English major, but she never shook her desire to enter the medical field.

Working a public relations job for a hospice, Ordway was inspired by the nurses she encountered during her day job and decided to take an EMT class just to see if she would like it.

"I thought I wasn't doing enough with life," said Ordway, 33, of Warner. "A lot of my friends were EMTs, so I decided to get my EMT license and joined Warner Rescue."

She said she found it empowering to be calm and disconnected from a situation to help people, like on one emergency call she responded to when someone was having a panic attack.

This winter will mark her sixth year volunteering in Warner, but Ordway is no longer a volunteer dissatisfied with her day job. She found so much meaning in helping people as an EMT that she decided to go back to nursing school and earned her degree from NHTI two years ago, after "getting over the idea of seeing blood."

These days, Ordway works as an interventional radiology nurse at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon. She enjoys building relationships with the patients and "the amazing people you meet."

Despite her busy nursing schedule, she still volunteers with Warner Rescue. Her favorite calls are the traumas, although those are few and far between, she says.

"A lot of the stuff we get isn't necessarily life-threatening. People just really need you for that moment," Ordway said. "There is the medical component and a reason for you to be there, but a lot of time it seems more like emotional support."

Ordway is not the only nurse involved in emergency medical care, but Sue Prentiss, chief of the state Bureau of Emergency Medical Services, thinks that more nurses could easily get involved and don't know it. Prentiss said nurses receive EMT training while in school, meaning they would need to take only a 24-hour training program and a written and practical exam to become a licensed provider, as opposed to the longer training for those without medical backgrounds.