Special Training

I recently completed a 50 hour, week long training at Volk Field Air National Guard base called Disaster Medical Specialist. The training is a specialized track, as part of the larger Wisconsin Task Force 1 team that I have been a part of since I started on the fire department in Chippewa Falls. The team has trained and is designed to respond to large scale disasters (i.e structural collapses, natural disasters, etc.). It follows a similar training pattern to those teams who have responded to Ground Zero, the Pentagon,  Hurricane Katrina, and overseas to other disasters such as earthquakes in Japan and Haiti. In fact, several of the instructors for this course were part of the teams that responded to many of those places. (Lots of experience and very good stories).

As a med specialist, my group is basically in charge of the medical care for the team.  We also train to help search canines and to take care of those civilians who may be trapped or need immediate medical aid in the disaster.

Here are a few pictures to highlight the week:

Here is the training area we have at Volk Field. It includes many different building structures in different stages of collapse and has a major "rubble" pile in the foreground that includes several buildings and a parking garage. The area has been specially engineered to remain safe for training by students at UW-Madison Engineering School.

Here is a classmate of mine from a department in Indiana. He is taking care of "victim" whose legs are trapped in a collapse area and teams will need at least 48 hrs before they can get equipment and personnel to remove all the debris. Can you keep him alive for that long?

My team removing a victim from the rubble through the collapsed parking structure. This is approx. 1 hr into the scenario.

Yours truly pulling the same victim, pictured above, through an opening the size of the patient. What you can't see in the picture is the car on the opposite side of the wall that is 3 ft from the wall. The area I am in is approx. 6 ft x 6ft.

There might be a victim in there, we need to check all areas if possible.

Practicing starting an IV on a patient that is only accessible, at the moment, through the small opening visible.

Overall this was by far one of my favorite classes to date, and I learned a lot of great practical tricks and tips that I can use in everyday EMS practice.