They knew a call could come at any moment.

At 6:30 p.m. Thursday, a group of paramedics and EMTs at Centre LifeLink EMS, 125 Puddintown Road, hosed down vehicles and checked supplies in the ambulance bay to prepare for the night ahead.

"It really depends on what's going on throughout town," Paramedic Supervisor Bill Myers said about the number of ambulance calls on a typical Thursday night. "Sometimes it's busy, sometimes it's not. But after midnight, you get the 'Thirsty Thursdays.' "

Myers said because Thursday is a big party night for students, LifeLink is often called to help drunken students in need of medical care. LifeLink's ambulances are equipped with medical supplies and devices to respond to basic and severe emergencies.

"Beep, beep."

At 6:35 p.m., the staff's pagers sounded as word came through their radios that an elderly resident of The Village at Penn State retirement community was found wandering the halls in a disoriented state.

Myers quickly hopped into the driver's seat of an ambulance. Along for the ride were EMT Lori Carozzoni and EMT trainee Abigail Royer, a senior at Penns Valley Area High School.

The drive to the retirement community was fast and bumpy as the ambulance rushed through traffic.

When the ambulance reached the retirement community, the crew hurried to the elderly woman's apartment room on the third floor with a stretcher and medical supplies.

"Hi there, what's going on today?" Myers greeted the woman, who sat on a couch with two caretakers from the retirement home. "Can you tell me how young you are?"

After the woman said she did not remember what happened, Myers took hold of the woman's arms and helped her walk to the stretcher. "Now we're gonna dance, okay?" Myers said, as the woman chuckled. The crew then wheeled the woman to the ambulance and headed for the hospital.

Minutes later, the vehicle reached Mount Nittany Medical Center's Emergency Room, where the woman was brought inside and handed over to the care of nurses.

The ambulance returned to the station, but not for long. The hungry staff was ready for another important destination - CiCi's Pizza, 1653 N. Atherton, for a quick dinner break.

The crew then came back to the station and waited for the next call.

At 12:30 p.m. - six hours after the first call - their pagers began to beep. An underage male student was found staggering down South Garner Street by State College Police.

Paramedic Nathan Shadle and EMT Dawn Brownson jumped into an ambulance and rushed to the scene.

When they arrived, the student was sitting on the curb and appeared intoxicated. Two police officers on bicycles told Shadle and Brownson that the student failed a sobriety test and could not stand up.

To complicate matters, the student was wearing a medical bracelet and carrying an insulin pump, indicating he had diabetes, Shadle said.

"Someone who has low blood sugar can have the same appearance as [too much] alcohol," Shadle said as he took the man's blood sugar inside the ambulance.

After finding that the man's blood sugar was normal, Shadle determined he was intoxicated.

On the ride to the hospital, Brownson cared for the student in the back of the ambulance, asking him questions to keep him alert. However, the man replied with severely slurred speech and went in and out of consciousness.

"You gotta wake up for me, man," Brownson said.

Just as the ambulance reached the hospital, the student vomited on himself and the floor of the ambulance.

The intoxicated student was ushered inside, where nurses rolled him facedown onto a bed and cared for him. Shadle and Brownson then returned to the ambulance to clean up the vomit.

"This is the fun part," Shadle said. "Cleaning everything up."