Bloody simulation shocks students into medical responses

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By Elyse Kaner
Staff Writer

Talk about a wake-up call.

It’s not often a student comes across bloody bodies involved in a construction accident – at 7:30 in the morning.

But new students in Bill Neiss’ Emergency Medical Responder class at Spring Lake Park High School earlier this week were jolted into the drama of medical work in a surprise moulage injury simulation during their first-hour class.

“I can’t feel my legs,” a faux victim screamed, propped up against a wall with one of her arms severed at the elbow and appearing as a bloody stump, her legs slathered in stage makeup looking remarkably like real blood. An electric saw and tipped ladder are part of the scene.

Just one week into school and OEC’s (Opportunities in Emergency Care) 35 nascent EMR students find themselves amid a bloody amputation and a critical accident scenario. “It was somewhat shocking,” said senior Nick Roberts, who jumped in and tried to stop a victim’s bleeding with tips he had learned in his first aid classes.

The Spring Lake Park High School students are testing the waters for careers that call for expediency in medical response times and spontaneous responses to dangerous situations. First responders, policemen and firemen, for instance.

In his 24th year at the school, OEC director Bill Neiss likes to throw his EMR students a challenge early on in the school year by staging a moulage injury simulation.

Moulage is a French word meaning casting or molding and involves applying mock injuries for the purpose of training Emergency Response Teams and other medical personnel.

Many of the students in Neiss’ first-hour class rushed with their medical emergency kits to administer aid to the victims. Others stood around not sure of what to do.

And students couldn’t look to Neiss for help. As part of the scenario, he sees the blood pretends to vomit and faints on the pavement outside of the OEC room at the high school.

“It’s kind of a self-evaluation in how they’d respond,” Neiss said of his students in an interview with the Life. “It gives them a taste of emotion, of emergency. The sounds… the sights….”

Students soon learn that if they freeze and just stand there, they aren’t alone, he said.

When many of the EMR neophytes say they didn’t know what to do in such an emergency, Neiss poses a question.

Do you like the feeling of not knowing? he asks. The answer is usually an emphatic “no.”

“All right,” Neiss says. “Remember that feeling.”

The discomfort spurs them to work harder, to be part of a solution rather than part of the crowd, Neiss said.

As the school year progresses, students will have more than a half dozen opportunities to improve their responder skills in other moulage simulations.

As for Nick Roberts, when he is faced with his next surprise moulage episode, “it will be less shocking,” he said, adding he will check the victim’s breathing more closely and make sure injuries are not just blood marks.

Andy Stoesz returned to SLP to volunteer as a victim during the early morning simulation. A 2008 SLP High School graduate, Stoesz took Neiss’ EMR class in 2005. He is now a medic in the U.S. Army.

Han Dam, a senior at Spring Lake Park High School and experienced OECer, played a victim who had fallen in the construction accident.

The moulage is usually the part when students realize they don’t like blood, she said. Still, the class gives opportunities to students who would otherwise have to pay for such an experience, say, in a college course.

Dave Turner, an OEC para, has assisted in many a moulage simulation at the school. Usually, the students don’t seem confident this early in the year, he said.

The medical field is one of the fastest growing job fields, according to Neiss, who has been instrumental in introducing and preparing many students for medical careers.

Rojaa Sougdali, a 2011 SLP graduate and former OEC student, was on the scene helping photograph the event for Neiss.

“It actually made me overcome the fear of blood,” said Sougdali about having taken the class. Sougdali plans to be an emergency room physician someday.

Experienced OEC students work such local events as football games and the Schwan’s USA CUP Youth Soccer Tournament.

Among the many tips he gave that morning, Neiss offered pearls of wisdom on wearing gloves and checking breathing. Stick your hand under a victim’s nose and mouth, for example, or watch the chest and belly for movement.

Han reminded students, even in simulations, not to laugh when working with victims and to keep serious and professional at all times. Although the class reasoned the laughter was a nervous reaction.

The EMR novices have a ways to go and much to learn, but time, study and practice will improve their reactions to medical emergencies.

Elyse Kaner is at elyse.kaner@ecm-inc.com