This year’s EMT Rodeo is the 10th iteration of the event, and the teams got hands-on training with subject matter experts and forged bonds with fellow Air Force medics.
“This lets us all share our knowledge so that we don’t have to experience 1,000 different things, we can just learn from each other to be prepared for those scenarios that we might have not come across in our normal careers,” said Senior Airman Jordan Dean, 633rd Medical Group emergency medical technician, stationed at Langley Air Force Base, Va.
The tools utilized to create these realistic environments are moulage, realistic injuries and wounds, man-hours and subject matter experts. Each situation requires participants to perform real-time assessments of the patients ranging from heart attack victims to performing care under fire including realistic gunfire and aggressors forcing them to react to a changing situation.
“The scenarios on base provide an opportunity to practice those skills you will use here in the local community,” said Senior Master Sgt. Steven Yates, Air Force Special Operations Command aerospace medical functional manager. . “It allows them to approach that patient and ask the right questions, utilizing their basic vital signs skills, patient assessment and taking the proper course of action. The medical scenarios at Melrose Air Force Range, New Mexico, are situations created from after action reports from deployed personnel.”
The important feature of the scenarios is their ability to help medics think outside the box.
“Each scenario is built to be able to go different ways depending on the decisions the participants make,” Yates said. “Healthcare is a very interesting and dynamic practice, it’s called practice for a reason, and every patient is different.”
The lasting effect of the EMT Rodeo is the cultivation of a culture of sharing experience amongst various generations of Airmen and ultimately ensuring readiness to perform the mission and develop stronger leaders.
“I was in their situation literally 10 years ago, and now I get to pass on this torch to these participants,” Yates said.