Mass casualty simulation at NAIT gives students realistic emergency response experience

NAIT simulated a building collapse to give medical students some hands-on training. CTV News Edmonton’s Connor Hogg has the story.

Nearly 200 students took part in a mass casualty simulation Saturday at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) to get realistic emergency response experience.

Students from five different post-secondary schools participated in the training exercise that simulated a building collapse.

“Within our centre for advanced medical simulation, we have a building collapse scenario, and students will take patients from that scenario, transport them via ambulance to different hospital settings,” said Terry Schlitter, dean of the school of health sciences at NAIT.

The dean said the exercise is important for students so that they have hands-on experience before entering the field.

“A lot of different schools take part in simulation education, but here at NAIT, we take it to another level,” said Schlitter. “This is an interprofessional education simulation where we take students from different health-care programs and we bring them together in a real, authentic way so they can learn with each other and about each other during these scenarios.”

Actors were brought in to pose as patients, many in full makeup so they appear injured. The scene was also set up with debris to make the simulation feel more real.

Second-year advanced care paramedic student Maya Lindell said the scenario NAIT puts on is pretty realistic.

“I’ve been a primary care paramedic in Edmonton for the past four years, so I do have real life experience,” said Lindell. “We don’t, thankfully, have many mass casualty incidents such as a building collapse … but this definitely does prepare you for the worst case scenario.”

Jennifer Simpson, a second-year MRI student said the exercise is beneficial to many first-year students who will begin their clinical training within the next few months.

“It’s very exciting to have them be part of these simulations,” said Simpson. “It gives them hands-on learning that’s very beneficial for when they start that clinical training.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Connor Hogg