Preparing for worst-case scenario
Medical, nursing students take part in mass casualty drill at college
FORT SMITH — Students from the Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine and nursing students from the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith put lessons they learned into practice in a simulated active shooter scenario last week.
The Arkansas Colleges of Health Education — home of the College of Osteopathic Medicine — held a mass casualty drill for hundreds of these students on its campus Thursday. The students worked hand-in-hand with local law enforcement agencies and other emergency responders to prepare for treating victims of a shooting incident should they have to respond to such an emergency in the future.
Kerrie Sanders, manager of the college’s Center for Clinical Skills Development who oversaw, designed and coordinated the drill, said Tuesday the exercise was partly meant to provide a realistic scenario in which the students could practice clinical skills in a safe environment. She explained reading about how to treat patients and actually performing those skills are two separate things.
“One of the analogies that I always like to use is you could go read a book on algebra or some form of advanced calculus and get maybe an idea of what they’re talking about, but until you actually sit down and start working the problems yourself, it’s really hard to understand what the full process is, and so that’s kind of what we’re doing,” Sanders said.
Sanders said the drill was also designed to give students intraprofessional experience by having them work with people from multiple agencies. Additional goals of the exercise were to introduce the students to trauma triage — the practice of looking at patients in a given situation, determining the severity of their injuries and prioritizing treatment based on severity to try to save as many lives as possible — and mitigating emotions that can come during a large-scale event.
The institution looked at different scenarios, such as tornadoes, and what other schools were doing before determining an active-shooter scenario would have the greatest impact on its students.
Sanders cited an article titled “Gun Violence in 2022, By the Numbers,” from the Trace — a nonprofit dedicated to reporting on gun violence in America — stating the country experienced 648 mass shooting events in 2022 killing at least 672 people and injuring more than 2,700. That year also saw an estimated 20,138 gun deaths in America, not counting suicides, according to the article.
“For our health care professionals, it’s not if they will come into contact with someone with these types of injuries, it’s when, essentially,” Sanders said. “That takes a different mindset for them to be able to work through treating those patients while mitigating their own emotions and being able to provide the best care possible.”
The drill started with a lecture in the College of Osteopathic Medicine from Brennon McMahan, paramedic supervisor for Sebastian County Emergency Medical Services. Among the topics McMahan covered were how to triage in a mass casualty situation and various tools used to control bleeding, such as cotton gauze, bandaging and tourniquets.
This was followed by a recording of shouts and gunshots being played out in the college lobby to simulate a shooting. A combination of mannequins and living actors got in place in an area cordoned off by yellow police tape to represent people who had been injured to varying degrees, complete with fake blood and makeup. The students were then escorted out of the building by law enforcement and divided into groups.
Sanders said students were given the option to not participate in the exercise if they chose. The teams of students participating either did the triage of the initial shooting event or received patients in a simulated hospital area. The drill was capped off with a debriefing concerning the scenario, patients and the students’ experiences. The students were also given a chance to ask questions of any of the personnel present, which also included college faculty and staff.
Alexis Summerford, a second-year student at ACHE, said her group treated two people at the scene of the mass casualty incident: one with a gunshot wound to the chest and another who had fallen down the stairs.
“It’s definitely different,” Summerford said of the drill. “You don’t expect to have to go through training for something like that, but with the day and time that it is, it happens, and so it’s nice to get a kind of perspective to prepare for. It’s definitely shocking, even though you can tell it’s kind of not exactly real, but it still gives you that chill, that adrenaline rush.”
Makayle Stone, a nursing student at UAFS who’s set to graduate in December, said her group treated four people whose conditions ranged from uninjured but terrified to having suffered a gunshot wound to the chest.
Stone said although she was very anxious before the drill, she felt her instincts kick in after stepping into it. She believes the exercise showed her she can be confident she’ll be able to handle a mass casualty incident like this and help people should she experience one later in her career.
“I won’t just shut down and be afraid,” Stone said. “I’ll be able to push through and care for the patients.”
Sebastian County Emergency Management was one of the outside agencies ACHE invited to participate in the drill.
Kendall Beam, emergency management director, said the drill went very well from his perspective. He believes any training or exercise will help any emergency agency like his improve itself and its ability to react if a mass casualty incident actually happens.
Sanders said about 400 students overall were set to take part in the mass casualty drill as of Tuesday. Thursday’s drill was ACHE’s first with an active shooter scenario.