Chattahoochee Technical College student Julie Downey, left, assesses fellow student Kinsey Gober’s injuries Wednesday during a mock disaster simulation held at the North Metro Campus. MARK ANDREWS/The Daily Tribune News
“They’ve been training in disaster management and triage, they just did not know they were coming out here for an event,” program director Scott Anderson said. “[Students] walk up to a ‘victim’ that you see out here, whether it’s a plastic [doll] victim or someone laying on the ground or walking around, ... and they have an index card and on the index card has a number for the victim and that’s how [students] tag them.
“The right corner of the card is going to have some information on it, like ‘40-year-old female,’ so you know what you’re looking at and it will have some vital signs and from that [students] will make a decision [on care needed].”
He added, “The hardest challenge [students] will have is to find somebody labeled ‘alive’ but they expect them to die and don’t have the resources to help them.”
The simulation included a total of 66 victims.
The advanced EMT program at the school takes one year to complete, not including pre-requisite courses.
Anderson said ever since 9/11, there has been an increased interest in the fields of emergency services as well as nursing.
“Because of the number of events we’ve had from [Hurricane] Katrina to [Hurricane] Sandy, things like that make people want to do something so they can help their community and so they sign up for these programs,” Anderson said. “We cover several different counties, we cover Pickens County, Bartow County, Cobb County and Cherokee County as service areas and people who come out of our program are going to work for the local fire departments, the local EMAs, they’re going to work for the local EMS, but then a lot of them are getting into working at Urgent Care facilities, working in emergency rooms, doctors’ offices, things like that.”
For more information on health care programs at CTC, visit www.chattahoocheetech.edu.