last friday i volunteered to be the victim of a gas explosion to allow the 2nd year paramedic students from St Johns Ambulance to practice their skills.

it was interesting to watch and learn how it all progressed – the system of first giving each victim a status card: either walking wounded, 2nd priority, 1st priority or dead. waiting for more crew to arrive. getting victims out of the building (where the explosion occured). sectioning off areas for conscious and unconscious victims (i was a conscious victim both times). getting to ride in an ambulance (for a total distance of 20m).

and then repeat (the 2nd years were split into 2 groups).

the IT guru has explained it all better over on his blog, and has put up some photos from the day on flickr

i had the opportunity to be in the car the second time round.

as you can see from the photos – the car had already been involved in a real accident. the car was there for the firies to practice using the jaws of life. so we had to clamber into this car (the doors did open) and then settle down and prepare to be cut out. it was scary first getting into the car, and trying to arrange yourself comfortably – the roof came down low enough that you couldn’t sit upright.

i hope none of you are ever involved in an accident where you need to be cut out of a car cos its bloody scary .