The 16 participants ended their class with a series of practical drills in a downpour, pulling mannequins from a tear-gas filled tent and hauling them to safety, shoving their arms into ice water to simulate working with an injury and patching up a patient while guns are going off alongside them.
"We're going to start with the tear gas," course coordinator Eric Warzecha told the class, "and it's going to suck the rest of the way around."
Emergency medical workers from Bella Vista, Fayetteville, Rogers, Springdale, Siloam Springs and Fort Smith got together in Bella Vista to learn tactical combat casualty care, or TCCC, a program designed to teach EMS workers how to treat people in combat related situations.
The class, which had 16 students, six instructors and five working to become certified as instructors, focused on bleeding control, surgical airways, needle decompression of the chest cavity, pediatric care, moving victims to safety and treating injuries in threatening environments.
Bella Vista firefighter-paramedic William Coker said the Bella Vista Fire and Police departments are working to be proactive and prepare for a potential shooting situation in the city.
The information in the course, he said, is based largely on medical data gathered by the Department of Defense during overseas conflicts.
"This is proven to work," he said.
But while the course is focused on combat-related injuries, he said, the skills it focuses on could prove useful in more normal trauma situations. It also provides a chance to focus on some less frequently used skills, like opening a surgical airway.
Warzecha, who works with the Rogers Fire Department and on the Benton County Sheriff's Office SWAT team in addition to coordinating classes, said that he's seen these techniques put into use outside of combat type situations.
"These skills that they're learning can be used in any trauma incident," he said. "They're using these skills on motorcycle accidents, motor vehicle accidents, chainsaws."
The drills, which included treating a patient over the radio, opening surgical airways, decompressing a patient's chest with a needle and the aforementioned treatment in a hostile environment stressed all these skills and got students thinking about some possibilities, Warzecha said.
"It adds a realism factor," he said. "It brings another level of care in."
General News on 05/23/2018