Collin College dual credit students from eight school districts participated in EMT Field Training Day activities at the college’s Public Safety Training Center in McKinney, Feb. 26 and March 7.
The reality-based scenarios reinforced the training that the students have learned in their high school emergency medical technician classes taught by Collin College instructors. Participating school districts included Allen, Frisco, Lovejoy, McKinney, Plano, Princeton, Prosper and Wylie.
Participants rotated through three major areas of hands-on education: a simulated Mass Casualty Incident (MCI), an extrication exercise and clinical rotation preparation.
During the mass casualty incident, groups of 15-18 EMS students acted as medics. They were dispatched to the scene of a simulated mass shooting staged in the Public Safety Training Center’s Reality Based Training Center. McKinney ISD Certified Nurse Aide students acted as patients, made up by the college’s simulation staff to appear injured in a variety of ways. MISD Police Explorer students served as “police officers” during the simulation.
The dual credit EMS students “ran the call,” responding to injuries, triaging patients and maintaining control of the scene as if it were a real incident. The students were debriefed afterwards to discuss what worked well and how their emergency response could be improved in the future.
During the extrication exercise, the students practiced controlling an “accident scene” and getting patients out of a “damaged vehicle.” The exercises required coordination between students and a knowledge of specific patient care techniques. Instructors threw surprises at them as they responded, making them adapt to a changing situation.
In the clinical rotation preparation area, the students learned how to help paramedics and nurses during their clinical rotations. They prepared IV bags, hooked patients up to EKG monitors and a performed other common tasks they will need to complete their education.
During the lunch break, an EMS helicopter from PHI, Inc., landed so that students could climb in, check it out and speak with the flight nurse and paramedic about their part in prehospital care.
“The field training day was to give the students an opportunity to apply the things they have learned throughout the year and have as close of an experience to the real situations that we could give them before they start their clinical rotations,” said Leslie Teel, the emergency medical services and health science professor who organized the EMT Field Training Day.