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When I first got here approximately six months ago - this last transfer season - I had been out of the operational gambit for about four years.
When I got here I knew I’d have to redo my first aid training from where I was stationed before.
I got here, it was the same training, the same book, and I was preparing to take on a different career once I retired.
I had been trained as an EMT in Virginia, nationally registered, and when I got here I figured I would use that training to refocus the vision of what we need to accomplish - what we need to give the public.
We bought a movie-quality moulage kit and I got some training on it. We set up a training phase to see if what we were teaching was being retained for an actual situation.
Anybody can say, “I’m putting on a bandage, I’m elevating a person’s feet to stave off shock,” but it’s different to actually see someone losing blood or in pain, so to speak.
So that’s what we wanted to have happen today.
We really wanted to see the crews react - see some of the new guys and the old guys, kind of mix it up with new crews, old crews - and see where we could go from there.
I found out that Chief Fisher was an EMT with years of experience. One of the cool things about being in the Coast Guard is learning about everyone’s different backgrounds and experiences.
So with training, you want to integrate that all together. When people bring their experience to the table, it’s better for everybody.
So I found out about Chief Fisher and said, we have some downtime … let’s try to think outside the box, and he just ran with it. He said, “I’ve got this moulage kit, fake blood, fake wounds. We could break out the EMT kit and rattle people up.”
And it worked great. Everyone was pretty enthusiastic about it.
We wanted to give as many scenarios as possible. You never really know what you’re gonna find out there.
Sometimes you get a phone call and it’s one thing, and when you show up on scene, it’s something completely different.
Again, we want to create that real-world scenario where when you arrive on scene, who knows what you’re gonna get?
I think it’ll improve the proficiency just by sheer practice. From what I’ve been told so far, everybody’s been really motivated, really looking forward to the training.
There were some people who didn’t really know what to expect
but I think from now on, there’s going to be a different outlook when we talk about first aid training and breaking out the moulage kit
setting aside half a day to delve into the emergency medical care of individuals.
Maybe next time we’ll actually use multiple patients or even get involved in the mass casualty drills that they do here on base.