On 16 Oct 06 the Honington First Response vehicle (Callsign 651) was
involved in a training exercise conducted by East Of England Ambulance
Service held in Great Massingham Norfolk. The Exercise involved both
RAF Honington, RAF Marham First Response vehicles and Crews from the
Great Massingham and Swaffam Fire Service.
We were the 2nd vehicle to arrive on scene, which was a 2 vehicle Road Traffic Accident. One the vehicles had sustained substantial damage with a number of casualties, whilst the second vehicle was on its side. There was also a casualty which had been thrown from the vehicle on impact.
My colleague and I immediately made contact with the Fire Service Incident Commander who gave us a brief on the situation and requested that we take over from his crew members with the casualty which had been thrown from the vehicle, which turned out to be an infant requiring resuscitation and the casualty inside the vehicle which was on its side. My colleague went to the infant and I went to the vehicle on its side.
I immediately made contact with the Fire Service team leader dealing with the situation. After a quick brief and a few pointers from the Ambulance Service assessor I arranged for the Fire Service to stop what they were doing to allow me to carry out an assessment of the situation and casualty.
The casualty was a male, in his 30s trapped in the vehicle with his head against the roof, with a member of the Fire Service supporting his head, which I knew was a good move, and his feet trapped on the pedals. On carrying out my initial assessment he had an open fracture to his upper left arm, was suffering with chest pain and complained that he could not feel his feet. After giving immediate treatment and lots of reassurance I consulted with the Fire Service team leader as to how I proposed to extract the casualty from the car. We both agreed the best way was to remove the roof then lower the car seat which would allow access to the patient to aide removal from the vehicle. I made the decision not to fully remove the roof until I had arranged for a member of the Ambulance Service to give the patient some pain relief.
After
what appeared like quite a long time, which was in fact only about 10
minutes, an Officer from the Ambulance Service arrived. He asked for a
full brief and was happy with the treatment given and the way we were
going to extract the casualty from the car. He also arranged for the
administration of pain relief for the patient prior to extraction.
Shortly afterwards the crew detailed to attend this incident arrived.
The Officer had briefed them, however they ran through the brief with me
and the Fire Officer to ascertain if anything had changed, which it had
not. They then took control of the situation, but continued to use me
throughout the successful extraction of the casualty.
Shortly afterwards the exercise was terminated and all members were given a thorough debrief on various aspects of the exercise, which had been a great success. However there is always something to learn. As a First Responder this exercise is a situation we could be sent to by control, and is part of our ongoing training, conducted by the East Of England Ambulance Service, along with our other skills. We see this as a valuable aspect of our training and one that I and other colleagues have attended, for real in the past.
