A bus driven by a drunk driver crashed into a group of pedestrians at the finish line of a race. Nearby, a parking garage partially collapsed, leaving many individuals in critical condition.
Emergency medical technicians arrived at both scenes to provide immediate medical care to the victims.
Well, sort of.
Both catastrophic events were fake simulations, part of the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville’s Disaster Day Drill, and the EMTs were first-year medical students.
USC School of Medicine incorporates EMT training and certification into its first-year medical curriculum. The 200-hour program teaches students how to deliver emergency health care to patients. The Disaster Day Drill serves as the student’s final exercise after completing their training.
Phyllis MacGilvray, dean of USC School of Medicine Greenville, explained that the annual event helps show students that the unexpected is part of what they need to expect. The drill also offers the opportunity for the students to put their EMT skills into action in a controlled environment.
“We want the unexpected to happen so that when they’re in a real-life scenario and those things happen it’s not the first time they’ve been exposed to something that stressful,” MacGilvray said.
Controlled chaos
Around 110 medical students participated in this year’s event, held Sept. 23-24. Each day, the students were split into two groups to respond to their assigned scenarios.
The students had to evaluate patients’ conditions, provide medical treatment and transport patients to the simulated hospital. Jeffrey Woodward, a first-year medical student, explained clear communication with his team was important during the drill.
“Getting thrust out into a situation like this in a controlled environment, it helps us know where the limit of our knowledge is and skills are,” Woodward said.
A group of volunteers including second-year medical students acted as the “victims” for the simulation. To make the drill more realistic, the victims were covered with fake wounds and given specific roles to act out. For example, MacGilvray participated in the drill as a victim who received a serious head injury after being hit by a bus.
“I’m just so proud of them,” MacGilvray said. “I can tell that they’ve worked hard. They’ve studied hard. They’ve taken this very seriously.”
Color coordinated
During the Disaster Day Drill, the medical students used a method called simple triage and rapid treatment or START. Page Bridges, a clinical associate professor of emergency medicine at USC School of Medicine Greenville, explained this is used to identify how serious a patient’s injuries are.
The patient is then tagged a specific color based on their status:
- Red: Someone who needs immediate care
- Yellow: Someone who needs care but it is not as urgent as the red tags
- Green: Someone who has minor injuries
- Black: Deceased
