Little Bodies Catalyze Firefighters

Firefighters in Menlo Park treated a child Thursday afternoon who was strangled by the chain from a broken swing set, while another crew cared for a baby who suffered a life-threatening seizure.  Nearby others worked to save a kid who had caught a stray bullet during a drive by shooting. 

Thankfully, the horrifying scenarios were only a part of a training session put on by the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in which firefighters from across San Mateo County came to practice life-saving techniques on child-sized dummies. 

"It's good, realistic, experience," said Dennis Molloy, a firefighter and paramedic with the San Bruno Fire Department, during a training that took place at the hospital's office on Bohannon Drive in Menlo Park.  

Molloy worked with his partners from San Bruno, Captain Jim Allan and firefighter Mike Ferretti, to practice how to save the life of a child who had suffered a seizure while sleeping. The team approached the scene as they would in the case of an actual emergency, which included their simulated use of equipment to treat the patient and to monitor the process of their recovery.

As well, nurses from the hospital played the role of a frantic mother who the firefighters attempted to work with in order to find out how the child had been injured. The goal of bringing all these elements together was to make the situation feel as close to reality as possible, so that firefighters would know how to respond in place should such an emergency occur, said Lynda Knight, a nurse at the hospital who led the training session. 

Thursday marked the final course in an ongoing set of classes in which firefighters in departments ranging from San Bruno to Belmont took lessons on how to treat seriously injured children. 

John Kammeyer, a Division Chief in the San Mateo County Fire Department, said the firefighters who take the courses come away feeling confident and educated. 

"Overwhelmingly we've had good feedback," said Kammeyer. 

He said that most of the firefighters who have participated in the training tell him that they would like to take more similar sessions in the future. 

The lessons learned are valuable not only in terms of preparing firefighters for how they would react in the case of a similar emergency, but also to become familiar with equipment that they do not normally use, said Kammeyer. And though the scenarios that firefighters respond to in the training may seem far fetched, they are actually based on real events that have taken place in communities across the Bay Area, said Knight. 

The dummy victims were even dressed and made up to appear similar to what a child who had suffered such a tragedy might look like. 

Each team of four or five firefighters simulated a response to the three different emergency scenarios, then debriefed with the nurses on hand at each station afterward to discuss what lessons they learned, and ways in which they could improve. 

"This is a good refresher," said Allan of the training.

And though the situation was fake, Ferretti said that he still found the practice response to be stressful; it evoked emotions similar to what he would have experienced in the case of a real emergency. 

Molloy agreed, and said that the intensity of the situation was heightened even more because the victims were  children. 

"There is just a greater sense of urgency when kids are involved," said Molloy.