Paramedics sharpen skills at mock disasters
EMS challenge was hosted by Boca Fire Rescue
BOCA RATON – Paramedics arrive to a rainy mudfest gone bad, with injured people screaming for help and rowdy bystanders getting in the way.
One man is howling in pain with burns to his hands, arms and face. Another has been knocked unconscious. Six people are hurt, including a young mother and child.
The chaotic scene was just one of five training scenarios for paramedics who competed in the Bernie Tillson Memorial EMS Challenge on Saturday and Sunday at different spots throughout Boca Raton.
The competition, hosted by Boca Raton Fire Rescue for eight years now, gives paramedics a chance to sharpen their emergency management skills, said Tony Jerina, the Boca Raton firefighter who helped organize the event.
The winners get a cash prize: $300 for first place, $200 for second and $100 for third. But even more important to the contestants, they get bragging rights, at least for a year.
Eighteen teams competed this weekend, including Delray Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Coral Springs, Pembroke Pines, Miramar, the Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue and Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.
The mudfest scenario went on all day at the Boca Raton Fire Rescue Training Center, with each team rushing in with no clue what kind of injuries or how many patients they’d be treating.
The victims and the hecklers played
their roles to the hilt all to make the scene ever more real.
“Help me! Help me! It hurts!” yells Ken Woodcum, a paramedic instructor and retired West Palm Beach firefighter playing the role of burn victim on Sunday.
Miami-Dade paramedic Richard James keeps his cool even when two women crowd in and scream at him to do something to stop the man’s pain.
Nearby, another team member works on a man with a chest injury.
A heckler hollers: “Let him die! I’m taking his girlfriend! We’re going to go on Jerry Springer!”
The paramedic, fiercely focused on his patient, doesn’t seem to hear.
“We heckle the competitors to make it more chaotic and more realistic, get their adrenalin pumping,” said Boca Fire Lt. Robert Parks, who was overseeing the mudfest scene.
Woodcum, who played the burn victim, says he tries to be as loud and obnoxious as he can, even though it may mean losing his voice. By the end of the day, he would scream and holler in mock pain for 18 teams.
“I’ll be a baritone tomorrow,” he said after finishing his second go-round.
Sunday’s scenarios included a 10 year-old child – played by a mannequin – who has a heart attack while walking through a parking lot with his mom; and a fraternity party with several injuries: One chokes after snorting a condom; one catches fire in the shower after dousing himself with lighter fluid; another is seriously ill after giving himself a booze enema.
The fraternity scenarios may seem far out, but they’re happening today at college campuses, Jerina said. And if they happen here, first responders want to be ready.
“We train all year to be better on the streets, but this makes us better,” Parks said. “Doing these scenarios makes us better prepared for real-life situations.”