On a Sunday morning close Warsaw there is simply a disaster: after a collision with a passenger car a train derails. There are fatalities and wounded. Most of the victims are children. The crash is noted by commandos flying the Mi-17 chopper from the Air peculiar Operations Unit. They decide to join the action: they land close and take command of the situation.
Training was as real as possible. Incarcerated in the function of the victims, they were decently qualified and trained doctors acted under reflection of alleged moderators.
According to this scenario, medical exercises "Toddler defender 2025" were held in late October. They were organized jointly by the Children's Clinic UCK WUM in Warsaw and the Commandos Military Unit. For training in the fire brigade in Nowy Dwora Mazowiecki, they besides invited medical rescue students and firefighters from the Fire Academy, the State and Military Fire Department, a medical squad from the capital of the Water Volunteer Rescue Service, operating at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, the Humanitarian-Media Aid squad and uniformed medics from the Military Medical Institute – in full more than a 100 people. The medical transport of the victims was taken care of by the Air Emergency Service crew, military Mi-17 from the Air peculiar Operations Unit and M-28 B/PT from 33 Transport Air Base from Powidz.
– There were quite a few individuals, services and institutions involved, but in specified a heterogeneous environment we wanted to see how we would work together in the event of a crisis. How do we put together procedures erstwhile we're dealing with a twelve or a twelve victims. This is besides a test for the personnel of our hospital's emergency department, who knew nothing about the course of the exercise," says Marcin Janik, a paramedic from the Children's infirmary in Warsaw. “Medicalians not only had to deal with fake patients properly, coordinate the work of staff recruited to the ER from all over the hospital, but besides to supply medical services and receive patients on a regular basis,” the exercise coordinator adds.
Commandos with help
One of the assumptions of the training was the failure of 112 and 999 alarm numbers. As the past fewer weeks have shown, this is not unrealistic. By the end of October, as a consequence of the accident, these numbers did not work in respective voivodships for respective hours. This made it hard or impossible to call emergency teams.
Note: This video contains realistic wound simulations. any shots may be inappropriate for delicate people. Production: Magdalena Kowalska-Sendek, Ewa Korsak, Marcin Łobaczewski, Aleksander Kruk
According to the scenario, there were 29 victims with varying degrees of injury: from intense hemorrhages, trauma limb amputation, traumatic cardiac arrest, abdominal exudation and hypovolemic shocks. – Due to the inaccessibility of the State Medical Rescue system, soldiers utilized their own means of communication and about the event alerted the Civilian-War Search and Rescue Centre ARCC Warszawa. They have thus activated the chain of notification to the services. Thanks to this, the air rescue squad or the State Fire Department appeared on the site very rapidly – Marcin Janik reported during the exercise. – Military medics were first on the scene, so they naturally took command and joined the alleged triage, or segregation of wounded. They marked the victims with appropriate colours, so they know who should be hospitalised first – he described the situation of the co-organiser of the exercises.
During the maneuvers, civilian and military medics admitted that although the procedures for dealing with the patient are the same for everyone, any differences hinder their cooperation.
Along with the influx of teams of the State Fire Service or medical teams, the victims were subjected to the care of the services and adequately supplied: haemorrhages were dammed, dressings were put on, tourniquets were put on – with the word they did everything that could save the lives of the victims.
The organizers made certain the training was as real as possible. Incarcerated in the function of the victims, they were decently qualified and trained doctors acted under reflection of alleged moderators. The second conducted a medical simulation (e.g. giving the victim's vital parameters, test results and all that the pretender was incapable to simulate) and reacted on an ongoing basis to whether the trainers performed medical procedures correctly, administered medication, and whether the condition of the injured was deteriorating. The function of moderators was played by experienced doctors, including academic lecturers, paramedics, doctors, erstwhile and active soldiers of peculiar troops.
“This is simply a circumstantial exercise scenario, which deviates from medical training conducted in the military, even due to the fact that we had patients under 18. We so had to adopt appropriate medical parameters for children and adjust the dosage of medicines. It is simply a valuable experience, due to the fact that you never know in what circumstances and in which cases we will act in the event of a crisis or war – says Grzegorz, a doctor from JWK (because of the specifics of the service we do not give the names of peculiar troops).
During the maneuvers, civilian and military medics admitted that although the procedures for dealing with the patient are the same for everyone, any differences hinder their cooperation.
The injured were transported on board Mi-17 to a infirmary in the centre of Warsaw under command of commandos. The injured besides carried LPR. 1 individual with the most serious injuries on board M-28 B/PT aircraft was transported to a specialist infirmary in another part of Poland.
Co-operation is simply a must
– Military and civilian medics must act together. We should learn to work together, to bridge differences, to act as 1 good squad in a real situation," said the service representatives. There will come a time to learn from the exercises in Nowy Dworze Mazowiecki, but as civilian and military medical practitioners have admitted that although the procedures of handling the patient are the same for everyone, any differences hinder their cooperation.
“We know that there are legal gaps, due to the fact that according to the laws in force, it is not known who should be in charge of rescue action in specified a case and how to operate at the interface of civilian and military medical services,” stressed Marcin Janik. Grzegorz from JWK told him: "At least we request to add issues concerning different communication systems and information to each other. It seems to me that we are only at the beginning of the road to creating a uniform model of conduct for all services. Coordination of specified different divisions is not easy, but it is not impossible. You just gotta do specified exercises more frequently – noted the medic from Lublin. Further exercises with the interaction of JWK medics with wellness care strategy units are scheduled for June next year.
