By Emily Morris
Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Florida)
Copyright 2007 Sarasota Herald-Tribune Co.
All Rights Reserved
EAST MANATEE, Fla. — Bloody bodies littered the lawn at the Manatee Technical Institute on Saturday morning as firefighters teamed up with emergency medical technician students for training.
East Manatee Fire Rescue Capt. Tim Hyden decided to stage a more elaborate training scenario involving a crash scene with multiple vehicles and patients for both the students and his department.
Three vehicles, one on its hood, were placed on the lawn. MTI student volunteers were covered in fake blood and acted out various injuries while firefighters extracted them from the vehicles and students tended to the injured.
Student Winston Cooke came across a critically injured man lying in the grass. The man’s daughter was such a distraction that Cooke asked a firefighter to remove her from the scene. Eventually, Cooke’s patient died from his injuries and Cooke had to move on to other patients needing his help.
Instructor William Thayer, with Manatee Emergency Services, praised Cooke’s handling of the situation.
“When you are overwhelmed, you need to determine who’s savable and who’s not,” Thayer told the students. “It’s a hard decision to make, but there’s other people hurting out there.”
Cooke said he learned a lot from the exercise.
“I see the stress that the paramedics are under in a multicasualty incident like this,” Cooke said. “As we went along, the more experienced people critiqued us, so maybe next time I’ll remember what they said.”
For the professional emergency workers, the staged scenarios offer a chance to analyze their performance in a controlled environment.
“If anything, we hone in on our skills we already have,” Lt. Derrick Toney said.
Hyden knows he can never re-create the tension workers experience at an actual crash site, but he strives to make it as realistic as possible.
“This looks like the side of I-75,” Hyden said, gesturing to the accident scene. “We see this sort of thing a lot.”