On Saturday, September 9, 2017 I was a volunteer victim at the nightclub massacre scenario. This scenario was based on the Florida nightclub attack in 2016 where 49 people were shot and killed. In the scenario, I played a person with minor injuries. Medics have to learn that a screaming woman with a flesh wound is less important than someone unconscious and bleeding from the chest. Urban Shield gives them a chance to have a screamer try and distract them from the patient with more urgent need. Sometimes people with minor injuries overwhelm a hospital’s emergency room before ambulances arrive with more seriously injured patients. Here are some other examples of lessons learned over the weekend:
- I watched a 2nd year medical student and a nurse with 30 years experience work together to triage patients.
- I spoke with a nurse who in real life was “just a floor nurse” and does not do mass casualties. She said her union was trying to get 25 nurses to go to Texas to help victims of hurricane Harvey. She said based on her experience at Urban Shield she was more ready to do something like that.
- A nurse learned how to rescue a police K-9 who had been shot in the massacre.
I watched the Oakland Fire Department participate in the scenario and I thought, “these guys handled the Ghost Ship Warehouse fire. I bet they are trying to apply everything they learned from that tragedy to these scenarios.”
Rescue work in a densely populated urban area like a nightclub involves multiple departments working together. Urban Shield allows all these multiple departments to learn working together and learn these lessons while no lives are really at stake.