OLDS — At about 9:10 a.m. May 8, sirens could be heard as emergency vehicles raced into the parking lot between the Olds RCMP detachment and No Frills.
It was time for the annual Prevent Alcohol and Risk-related Trauma in Youth (P.A.R.T.Y.) program, designed to to show students the consequences of making bad choices involving alcohol or drugs.
Grade 10 students from École Olds High School were brought to the area in several buses where a mock traffic accident had been set up, complete with a power pole over the hood of one vehicle.
Several students acted roles in the collision.
FortisAlberta crews, Olds RCMP, Olds firefighters as well as Emergency Medical Services ambulance crews and Heartland Funeral Home attendants participated in the exercise.
Afterward, students were broken up into groups to learn about other aspects of the consequences of collisions. Some remained at the mock crash site. Students had the opportunity to use some of the tools that firefighters and fire cadets used in the accident scene. A trauma room simulation and fire hall demonstration was on the itinerary. Others went to the Heartland Funeral Home for a tour of the facility and an RCMP presentation. Then the two groups rotated. They returned to the fire hall for a lunch and speech by a guest speaker.
Fire Chief and protective services director Justin Andrew served as MC for the occasion.
“You’ve got rescue trucks, police cars, ambulances, everything; it’s all going and it’s organized chaos,” Andrew said.
He noted that with the power pole down and loose power lines on the vehicle and ground creates a safety hazard for emergency responders.
So the first move, explained by FortisAlberta power line technician Bradley Watkins, is to render the scene safe.
Then police and firefighters, including firefighter cadets, got down to work.
Police investigated, talking to survivors.
Right away, one person (Meah Leger), thrown through the windshield on to the hood of a vehicle, was declared dead.
“We don’t spend any time on the deceased at that point because there are other people that need to be helped,” Andrew said.
“It may seem very cold and barbaric to see a body in that position, but it’s part of the investigation and the priority is not on somebody already passed away, it’s on the people (you could save).
“So we’ll do whatever we can to dignify that body by covering it, but we’re not going to do anything on it right now.”
A couple of Olds RCMP officers on-scene began questioning the driver of the other vehicle (Liam McGee).
He was asked to blow into a blood alcohol screening device.
Asa result of that reading and the interview, McGee was led away to a nearby police cruiser by Const. Alex Gabriel.
“If you are charged with impaired operation of a motor vehicle causing death or injury to another person, that is a criminal charge and it can carry massive fines and imprisonment,” Andrew said.
“There’s been many people whose lives have been impacted terribly through the perils of drinking and driving.”
While McGee was being led away, ambulance crews and firefighters checked out the remaining passengers in the vehicle that had been hit to see if they were stuck inside and to assess their injuries.
Suddenly, a very distraught woman rushed to the side of the “deceased,” screaming for her loved one.
Firefighters and police pulled her away.
Andrew said often “rubber-neckers” driving by the scene of an accident will take photos or videos as they drive by, then post them.
That in turn can spur relatives or friends to rush to the scene and end up interfering in the work of emergency responders.
“We want to give everybody the respect and dignity of being cared for appropriately and we just don’t need that extra attention paid on the scene,” Andrew said.
He said such actions are against the law.
“It’s distracted driving,” Andrew said. “It carries a large fine and demerits. Cellphone use while you’re driving is absolutely prohibited and it’s enforced very strictly. If you’re witnessed (doing so) by peace officers, police officers, they will issue you a ticket.”
Firefighters could be seen using a hydraulic spreader and cutter tools to remove a door from a vehicle to reach trapped victims.
“The premise is that we remove the car from the patient. We don’t remove the patient from the car,” Andrew said.
“These tools have phenomenal force. They cut metal kind of just like a hot knife through butter.
“They operate on a high-pressure system of over 50,000 pounds per square inch of operating force, which is pretty substantial.”
Andrew said today’s vehicles are designed to take a lot of damage and when they’re hit severely, they “squish up kind of like a pop can,” which can make it very hard to extract crash victims, hence use of the hydraulic spreader and cutter tools.
Andrew said crews work hard and as quickly and carefully as possible to get accident victims out and to a level 1 trauma centre (the closest being in Calgary) within an hour.
They call that time the “golden hour” because the best chance for those victims to survive is to get them out of the wreckage and to hospital for treatment within that time.
In some cases, a STARS helicopter is summoned to the scene from Calgary. Andrew said in those cases, they can take a patient from Olds to a Calgary hospital in 15 to 20 minutes in good weather.
“We are very fortunate here that with the experience and training of our members of all agencies that we do meet the one-hour golden standpoint of getting patients from here to level 1 trauma centres frequently,” Andrew said.
Andrew said dealing with the aftermath of collisions or other traumatic events can be hard, stressful work for emergency responders, but they do it because they love it and get a tremendous source of satisfaction from it.
“We’re there to help people and we enjoy it thoroughly,” he said.
“It’s a great feeling of fulfilment and satisfaction to know that we made a positive impact in somebody’s life and so a career in the emergency services is always one that we promote. I have no regrets and I’ve been in it for 28 years.”
Once the door was taken off of the vehicle, firefighters and paramedics were able to first place the patient (Chelsea Black) on a spine board to immobilize her in case of spinal injury.
Then they carefully placed her on a stretcher, removed the spine board and wheeled her into a waiting ambulance.
Once all the accident victims had been dealt with, Heartland Funeral Home employees were brought in to transport the “deceased” (Leger) to the funeral home.
Andrew said emergency responders don’t often talk about the impact that seeing and dealing with death can have on them.
He said that “forever leaves its mark.”
“It’s probably one of the worst things that somebody would ever have to do, is notify somebody that their family member has been killed,” Andrew said.
“So certainly it’s a terrible aspect of the job and it’s one that has to be done, because obviously, people need to know.”
Once the accident victims and the deceased have been dealt with, tow trucks come and take away the damaged vehicles, the scene is cleaned up and FortisAlberta crews begin the work of restoring power.
Andrew noted that restoring that power can often take a long time if a new power pole has to be erected.
“The big thing for us as (emergency) responders is that we work collaboratively as a team to make sure that we all go home safe together as well as the people involved in the accident,” Andrew said.
Kevin Sutherland was one of the students watching the demonstration.
Sutherland was asked for his thoughts about it.
He described the event as “cool and interesting.”
When asked what was so cool about the demonstration, he said, “just the procedures and how they cooperate and deal with everything.”
In fact, Sutherland said he was so intrigued by the work undertaken by firefighters that he’s now looking at enrolling in the fire cadet program in Grade 11, the first year of eligibility for it.
It was noted that the purpose of the P.A.R.T.Y. program is to discourage youth from drinking alcohol or consuming drugs and then driving.
Sutherland said that’s not a problem for him because he doesn’t party like that.
