Mass simulation

Thursday morning, a mass casualty simulation was conducted by the Calhoun Community College Health Sciences Division on the college’s Decatur campus. This was the thirteenth year the college has conducted a different type of mass casualty event, and until it begins, student participants are unaware of the chosen scenario. This year, the simulation was that of an active school shooter.

Each year, the college hosts this high-energy training where students and public safety representatives go into full character to mimic real-world emergencies that occur in the healthcare and public safety industry. The scenarios are not disclosed prior to the event to make the simulation as real as possible.

“I am a paramedic by trade, and you can’t over practice these. If there’s a school shooting — and nationwide there has been three school shootings in three days — you can’t over practice this. Sometimes the scenario has been a mass disaster like a tornado. Sometimes it has been a car through a parade. Timing is probably critical for what they are doing today as far as school shootings,” Huntsville Research Park Administration Dean Mark Branon said.

The simulation was aided by many agencies from around the area. HEMSI, Athens-Limestone EMS, Decatur Morgan Hospital EMS, Decatur Fire and Rescue, Madison Fire, Campus Police Survival Flight, Air Evac, law enforcement from around Alabama, and Lifeguard EMS participated in Thursday’s drill. Students from the Athens-Limestone Tech Center’s health and HOSA classes participated also.

“We do teach dual-enrollment EMS, and Limestone County Career Tech Center has numerous students here who are participating as some of our patients today,” Branon said.

Although the drill is designed to greatly benefit the students involved, the participating agencies also benefit in the simulation.

“The agencies get some cross training with each other, and it is important to refresh on the whole idea of Incident Command System, which is used nationwide,” Calhoun EMS Program Director Tyler Mosley said.

“We are more than happy to participate to help Calhoun in this event. We love to be a partner with them in any of their training,” Suzanne Johnson with Air Evac said.

The drill had many components, including practice for those on scene as well as those waiting to triage and treat the actor patients as they arrived at the “hospital” where students from the college’s Nursing, medical Laboratory technician, and Surgical technology students participating in the drill waited.

At the scene of simulated school shooting, as EMS arrived on scene, their first triage step was to sort the patients. Some actors are scripted to scream in an effort to distract paramedics, which is part of the training.

“They are going to categorize them in green, red, yellow, and black. Green is walking wounded and the first to go because they can evacuate themselves off the scene. Next is red, your priority ones, yellow is your delayed transport, and black is your dead – the morgue – and the last to go,” Branon said. “It looks slow in development, but this is the right way it should develop because we have to go in and do the primary triage and sort the patients.”

Branon emphasized, “You don’t want to move the disaster from here to the ER. That’s the worst thing you can do.”