Hundreds of Colorado students step into the shoes of first responders
In a Douglas County parking lot on Tuesday first responders jumped into action to save victims of a massive drunk driving crash. ... Except there was no crash. And the responders were Colorado high schoolers.
A total of 200 Rock Canyon High School students stepped into the shoes of first responders in a simulated crash involving 16 teens.
"You've received a call. Four car accident, multiple bodies on the ground, pretty big scene. You are now going to be our first responders, okay? I'm going to walk into the scene with you. You let us know what we need," said Aaron Paul, Criminal Justice teacher at Rock Canyon, while he instructed students.
Criminal Justice students were the first to respond to the simulated accident.
"I was helping a victim over there, like taking care of her, trying to help her get the story and then we had to go over to our makeshift hospital," said Espne Kaul, Criminal Justice student.
Soon after, fire science and EMT students arrived.
"We rolled up on scene today after the police and Gia was captain and I was engineer so we kind of had to do a size up of the situation, went out and put out that fire," said PJ Plumb, a Fire Science student.
The last on scene were Forensics students.
"We're putting evidence markers down, we're photographing stuff, we're drawing it on a map with a key," said Christian Jobson, a Forensic Science student.
Along the way, teachers and industry experts guided the students. For the Criminal Justice students, it was Douglas County Sheriff's Office school resource officers.
"That's where the officers are coming in to play, they're walking with the kids through the scenario and they're taking them to those deeper steps that we would actually do on this scenario," said Paul.
It's all part of a career and technical education program that gives students hands-on experience and college credit.
"Kids have questions about big scenes. How does fire work with police? How does police work with EMT? So that was the brainchild behind being able to put together a scenario like this. Put the academics that we've been studying into practical use," said Paul.
Including close partnerships with agencies like Douglas County Sheriff's Office and South Metro Fire Rescue.
"We've done live burns with South Metro Fire, we get to experience real fire and put them out with real hose water, we just finished up auto extrication at Franktown with South Metro, we got to tear apart some cars," said Plumb, "all my other classes they just like talk about everything, but I love how we can actually go in fire and actually put out the fire."
Students graduate from the program with more than just experience. EMT students can graduate with their EMT Basic, and fire science can get their BLS certificate.
It's an early start for the next generation of Colorado's first responders.
