An Cosantóir

www.military.ie the defence forces magazine | 15 and causing multiple casualties. The attacker then fled the scene on foot and later returned with a firearm and opened fire on civilians, which escalated the attack to an active shooter incident. With multiple attacks countrywide, hos- pital emergency departments were closed with the influx of casualties, students would have to hold onto casualties longer than anticipated, which manipulated the scenario so that students could be evaluated on their ability to manage patients over a prolonged period. The scenario gave the student a number of different forms of casualties from road traffic accident (RTA) to gun- shot wounds, another twist to the casualties was that some victims of the RTA had been waiting outside a doctor's surgery when they were hit; adding illnesses encountered every day in a hospital. The students were tested over three phases of the exer- cise, the first being the initial response of medical teams and their triage and treatment of casualties. The second phase was the setup of a casualty clearing station in order to prioritise the casualties and move them to this station, with continuous assessment of casualties. The third and final phase was the transport of casualties to a Role 1 facil- ity by ambulance. AP instructors/evaluators from various agencies acted as evaluators who gave students constant feedback through- out the exercise. They also changed the condition of the casualties if medical treatment was lacking in any way to keep the students on their toes and to test them to the limits of what could be expected of them. Coy Sgt O'Connor gave us his views on how the students performed on the exercise, "The students from each course adapted very well, especially working with paramedics in an advanced paramedic role." He added, "For the military stu- dents this would have been the first time they that they were called on to act as a medical technician in a team of clinically senior staff and they performed very well." He also informed us that there was a great mixture of experience on the exercise, from APs with over six years' experience, who were placed into key appointments. These helped students increase their learning curve by giving guidance where needed. It also increased interagency coop- eration and showcased the different skills set of CMTs. There was very positive feedback from UCD staff and students, who said that the planning and preparation of the exercise were excellent. There is a lot of work that goes into organising an exercise such as this, with lots of help from around the DF especially from the 1 ACS, DFTC Fire Station and DFTC MP Group. Coy Sgt O'Connor would like to extend his gratitude to all those who helped, which was very much appreciated and in part to the success of the exercise. He would also like to thank Operations DFTC for facilitating the CMU and from all UCD staff who helped out in making the exercise so successful.

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