Channing Lux
oskaloosa herald
Oskaloosa, Iowa — First responders from Mahaska County and local areas sharpened their emergency medical skills Friday morning with the help of a team of instructors and specialized equipment from the University of Iowa.
“As part of our trauma accreditation, we are required to provide education not only to first responders in the hospital, but also to first responders in the community,” said Michelle Williams, Mahaska Health Education Coordinator. said. “I was researching to find out what I could do to help with that, and I found the University of Iowa’s website about Simulation Iowa and some videos to find out what it was about, and I reached out to them and said, “How do we bring this to Mahaska’ County?”
Simulation in Motion-Iowa (SIM-IA) is a mobile lab that provides instant training in a variety of emergency medical scenarios using a mobile simulation truck that recreates health scenarios in a mock-up version of the back of an ambulance. Trainees will be able to work through medical scenarios with instructors who will guide them in dealing with medical emergencies that they may someday face in real life.
First responders from the Mahaska Health Department, Mahaska County Sheriff’s Department, Oskaloosa Police Department and Oskaloosa Fire Department participated in the approximately four-hour training session in a simulation truck in the Mahaska Health Department parking lot.
“This is a very high-tech simulated training environment,” said Zach Myers with the Oskaloosa Fire Department. “There are two different bays available. One simulates an ambulance, such as the back of an ambulance, and the other simulates an emergency room. It’s great to experience two different environments.”
“The mannequin is so high-tech that they can create so many different scenarios with it,” Myers added. “These aren’t simple CPR mannequins that just breathe. You can see in these photos that the pupils are dilated. You can tell the pulse, and in some cases you can even hear the lungs. You can hear abdominal sounds. Various things. You can also practice different skills and content that we do, from airway control, airway opening, to assistive things like suctioning. There are also things you can play. [tracheostomies] upon. “
Meyers said training opportunities like the one offered Friday through SIM-IA and Mahaska Health are “invaluable.”
“All of the training we have access to is extremely valuable, especially [ Osky Fire’s EMTs] I’m a fairly new paramedic. We don’t have a lot of experience in the medical field, so a training experience that is as close to real life as possible is very useful and highly sought after. ”
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