King’s hosts mass casualty incident training
Jared Reto, Bryanna Nelson, and Emily Morace, occupational therapy students, practice packing a wound and using a tourniquet on Wednesday at the Stop the Bleed session of the mass casualty incident training at King’s College.
Sydney Allabaugh | Times Leader
Occupational therapy students Caroline Keeler and Elizabeth Allen practice using tourniquets on Kathryn Mozeleski.
Sydney Allabaugh | Times Leader
Bruce Beauvais, operations manager of Pennsylvania Ambulance, Amy Brzoska, King’s College faculty athletic trainer, and Paul Lindenmuth, associate technical professor of criminal justice, participated in the MCI training session in the Frank and Carolyn Kowalski Center for Advanced Healthcare Education.
Photos courtesy of King’s College
Peg Austin, a registered nurse and trauma prevention outreach coordinator at Geisinger, teaches King’s College students how to use tourniquets to stop bleeding following a mass casualty incident.
Sydney Allabaugh | Times Leader
Brian McNulty, King’s College security officer, Michael DiMare, administrative director at Geisinger, and Peg Austin, a registered nurse and trauma prevention outreach coordinator at Geisinger, participated in the MCI training session at King’s College.
Photos courtesy of King’s College
King’s College students of various disciplines learn how to stop bleeding following a mass casualty incident.
Sydney Allabaugh | Times Leader
Peg Austin, a registered nurse and trauma prevention outreach coordinator at Geisinger, teaches King’s College students how to stop bleeding following a mass casualty incident.
Sydney Allabaugh | Times Leader
A mass casualty incident (MCI) training session was held Wednesday at King’s College.
Students in various disciplines, including nursing, criminal justice, and occupational therapy, learned how to respond to a mass-casualty incident stemming from a political protest. They also attended a “Stop the Bleed” class and a SALT Triage session to develop hands-on skills.
It was to help prepare for a future MCI practical exercise, which is designed to help students, faculty, staff, and local stakeholders develop critical emergency management skills.
“If we’re going to prepare students for being successful in the future, we want to start integrating them into these potential real world scenarios, so they’re that much more effective with showcasing their skills that they get in that academic program,” said Sean Blinn, event facilitator and assistant professor of criminal justice, noting the necessity of these skills in the current political climate.
Faculty from King’s College’s programs, as well as subject matter experts from Geisinger Wyoming Valley and the Wilkes-Barre Police Department, guided students and answered questions.
Sister Elizabeth Kovacs, event coordinator and R.N. to B.S. program director, said training typically occurs separately, but the tabletop exercise, which included anecdotes from industry professionals, demonstrated the importance of interprofessional collaboration and communication between first responders, law enforcement, and emergency department physicians.
“This is kind of a little bit of a groundbreaker, I would think, for the college to demonstrate how really important those working relationships are in real life,” Kovacs said. “They got to see, or hear, how important that is, to have good communication, how to know what you’re doing, as far as lives are at stake.”
In addition to participating in the scenario training, Peg Austin, a registered nurse and trauma prevention outreach coordinator at Geisinger Wyoming Valley, led the “Stop the Bleed” class. Austin explained and demonstrated how to pack a wound and use a tourniquet to stop bleeding.
“We do our mass casualty programs in-house, but now, to bring it out into the community and getting more entities involved is fantastic,” Austin said.
Students said sessions were interesting and informative.
“I think this could be practical in any field, even if we’re not at a hospital, because unfortunately, these things happen everywhere,” said Caroline Keeler, an occupational therapy student at King’s College.
Occupational therapy student Jared Reto concurred.
“I found the whole experience very interesting, especially with the levels of communication that have to happen with all the different disciplines that are in the whole program right now,” Reto said.
Austin said including various students of different disciplines is valuable.
“We’re part of a community here,” Austin said. “A mass casualty event can happen anywhere at any time, and the more people that are trying to handle it, the better we’re all going to be.”
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