Canadians Win World wide Emergency Response Competition

It's the world's largest such competition, held every two years.



Congratulations to a team from London Ontario who won the world Emergency Response Competion in Israel.
The team included Sevro Rodriguez, program manager for the paramedic base hospital in London, Jeff Conway, advanced care paramedic with London-Middlesex, Dwayne Cottel, advanced care paramedic and regional paramedic educator with base hospital, and Dr. Yaniv Berliner, an emergency doctor at St. Thomas-Elgin General Hospital and the London Health Sciences Centre.

During the three-day competition held in the Carmel and Gilboa regions of Israel, their day would start at 7 a.m. when they were handed the first envelope. Inside would be the directions to where they had to go and the call type, such as to address a chest pain or shortness of breath, adult or child.

"That was all the information we had. It was much like if you were in Middlesex and you would get a call from the dispatch," Rodriguez said. The team was given a fully-stocked ambulance and a driver.
When they arrived at the scene, they'd find professional actors who had scripted roles and multiple evaluators.

In one scenario, they arrived at a park and found out they had to use horses to navigate the seven kilometres through rough terrain to get to the patient. That meant working out what equipment they needed to carry with them and what to leave behind. At some point in the exercises, the evaluators would call a halt, thank the team for their work and then hand them another envelope with their next assignment. "The process was repeated over and over and over again," Rodriguez said.

One of the most challenging exercises involved what paramedics call an MCI -- a mass-casualty incident -- in which there were victims that could be treated by the paramedics. The teams were told there'd been a group of school kids who were exposed to something and now had medical complaints, including burning eyes and respiratory problems.

While the other international teams rushed in to treat the patients, the Canadians held back and debated what to do. "'Do we go in? There are suggestions of gas, it is unsafe,'" Rodriguez said. Following their training, they waited until they were told the area was no longer life-threatening. "We were the last team to go into the situation. Others were treating patients, contaminating themselves," Berliner said.
Cottel said he's still pumped from the Canadians being awarded the top prize.

I found this information from an article written by:john.miner@sunmedia.ca