Mock Disaster

The PHS health careers class students were "victims" in the community mock disaster held Tuesday evening. Students used our the moulage kit to plaster themselves with fake burns, embedded glass charts, and actual pumping arterial bleeds. The students screamed in pain, pretended to die, and go into shock. One student actually portrayed premature labor so realistically that they took her by ambulance first to quiet her down!

At the site, the students were to be victims of a school bus explosion. They were doused with diesel fuel and a suspicious white powder, necessitating decontaminating by haz-mat teams.
Dr. Holm, our county medical director, and the EMA's worked with incident command to clear the site. PHS students were all taken by ambulance to SJRMC and put through the decontaminating process. Air Angels and Good Samaritan were there with the helicopters and the students were able to sit in the helicopter and talk to the paramedic.

After the disaster, the students and Mrs. King, the school's health occupations instructor, attended the debriefing at the First United Church of Christ where they learned what the Red Cross does in the event of an emergency. The church became an emergency shelter at that point and students were signed in to the shelter, just as they would have been in New Orleans last month. It was an amazing learning experience for our students.