The exercise began with an ambulance barreling into the rear of the Missoula College building with multiple car accident victims, sending dozens of health profession students into action to care for the 'patients'.

Chair of Health Professions Nick Arthur said the drill was good exercise for the students to experience what would happen at an actual emergency room dealing with a multiple victim trauma.

"This has gone very well so far in terms of atmospherics in the room," Arthur said. "There's always that kind of crisis mode, but there's never any panic, it's just people doing what they're supposed to do in a timely manner and it has gone very well so far."

Arthur said the exercise was important for students to put their skills to work in an actual situation.

"We've got five clinical health professionals on the campus, all of which do extremely well, but they have to work in an integrative fashion," Arthur said. "This is the first exercise of this nature to bring these disciplines together as they would be in a hospital. Missoula Emergency Services was kind enough to bring over their ambulance with a male and female mannequin. The scenario was that a young couple, college kids, were in a motor vehicle accident and they arrived with serious injuries. They'll go through triage, get x-rays, and head into surgery."

Missoula College extended thanks to Missoula Emergency Services and Norco Medical Supplies for contributing to the exercise.

 

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