Conference to explore crisis ‘lessons learned’
New Zealand’s first responders are great at what they routinely do every day – but earthquakes, terror attacks and volcanic eruptions are anything but routine, and require a different approach.
This is according to Alex McDonald, 37, founder of Tactical Medicine New Zealand (TMNZ) and host of the Critical Resuscitation in Chaos conference (CriC24) taking place in Christchurch-Ōtautahi over the weekend.
“In their everyday job, a paramedic would go in an ambulance with everything they need and generally have time to provide medical care,” McDonald said. “In a tactical situation – for example, after an earthquake, and the building might collapse at any moment – there is a threat to the rescuer and the patient. So you might need to do the minimum targeted interventions to save the patient’s life before moving them to a safer place.”
McDonald is the founder of CriC24, a two-day conference that brings together first responders and those at the cutting edge of major emergency health incidents to share knowledge and skills on how to save lives in high-risk emergency situations. The conference will be held for the third time this year.
McDonald’s insight into medical care in high-risk situations is unsurprising given his rather impressive background.
After school, he enlisted in the army and was later sent to Timor-Leste as a platoon commander. While there, he undertook a combat lifesaver course (advanced military first aid), which reignited a long-held dream to pursue a career in the medical field.
He transferred to the Royal New Zealand Army Medical Corps halfway through his military career, volunteering for Hato Hone St John Ambulance while still in the army, and completing a Bachelor of Health Science in Paramedicine by distance.
McDonald founded TMNZ in 2020, and the same year transitioned to the Army Reserves so he could enrol in medical school. He is currently a fifth-year University of Otago medical student.
And if that doesn’t keep him busy enough, he is also the father of two toddlers, with a third baby on the way.
This year’s CriC24 conference will include presentations by recently retired United States Special Forces medical sergeant Paul Loos, and a doctor serving on the front line in the Ukrainian military.
The main session of the conference will reflect on five years of change since the March 15 terror attack.
This will include presentations from deputy chief coroner Brigitte Windley, ambulance and police officers who were some of the first on the scene, and Temel Ataçocuğu, who survived nine bullets in the shooting at Al-Noor mosque.
For McDonald, the conference is about sharing best practices and international lessons learned during these unprecedented events.
“Situations like the March 15 attack are high-risk, dynamic environments that are often full of confusion, and it is never really clear exactly what is going on.
“What TMNZ hopes to do is establish a standardised tactical medicine framework for New Zealand that will provide clarity in those situations by providing a common language … and a framework that allows everyone to, when they arrive, immediately tap into what the first people on the scene are doing and support that.”
The third publication of Guerilla Surgeon, by Dr Lindsay Rogers (originally published in 1958), will also be launched at the conference. Rogers was a New Zealand-born, University of Otago-trained doctor who served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in the North African desert, before volunteering to serve with the Special Operations Executive – the precursor to today’s MI6.
CriC24 is one of two major medical conferences coming to Christchurch in the next week. From May 6-10, more than 2000 attendees will be at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons’ 92nd annual scientific congress, the largest multidisciplinary surgical meeting in the southern hemisphere.