Preparing for the real world by facing nearly the real thing

AURORA – EMS Week is a chance to recognize the men and women who daily bridge the gap between emergencies and hospitals across the nation - saving lives in the midst of what are often horrendous circumstances.

What paramedics encounter on the street can be a world away from the classrooms where they begin their training. That's why the Community College of Aurora operates its Center for Simulation.

Enter the former Air Force hangar in Lowry and you're greeted by a warren of rooms. In each one is a set, not unlike what you'd see at a Hollywood studio.

There's a street, lined with brick buildings and a sidewalk café. Next door is the inside of a typical living room and down the hall - a bar.

Another set is dedicated to emergencies that occur in a bathroom. A former ambulance is also inside, giving paramedics the chance to administer treatments, sometimes for an hour or more, just as they would on a real ambulance ride.

In all these spaces, emergencies are staged and unfold without a script. The paramedics enter the room and deal with whatever they find. It's where their classroom learning is dramatically put into action.

The college's interim dean for Technical Education, Bob Matoba, says the purpose of the center is simple: "We actually take the pretend out of the environments and the students are exposed to the reality, the stressers."

On this day, a diabetic driver goes into shock behind the wheel and crashes into the café, badly injuring a woman and child. The driver is also injured and appears drunk. Bystanders get agitated and confrontational. It's a typical distraction that can derail an inexperienced paramedic.

Otis McKay, Jr. is a paramedic with Denver Health Medical Center.

He says the centers provides "the sights and sounds, the screaming bystanders, the chaos, that's involved with every call."

"I can't re-create a street scene completely, but these are all the dynamics that are put into a street scene," said McKay, Jr.

Just a coach uses videotape to review a player's game, the paramedics will also get a chance to review their performance. All around are cameras and microphones, discreetly placed, but omnipresent.

Behind closed doors, in control rooms, are instructors who can move those cameras in any direction, zoom in to see exactly how treatment is being administered. Their computers are linked to the most advanced dummies in the world. If a paramedic makes a mistake, the controller can instantly punch in an appropriate consequence.

One of those controllers, Pony Anderson said, "If they do something terrible, we can do something terrible and if they die, we kill them and let our students do CPR for a very long time."

Paramedics then take DVDs of their simulations to study in a classroom.

The goal, Anderson says, is to take the knowledge the paramedic already has in his or her head and move it down to their hands, whatever the distractions.

That's a mission that has caught the eye of the Pentagon. Recently, Army medics underwent the same sort of training as the paramedics.

According to Anderson, they were "astounded" by the difference from their current training. The realism was so effective that another team will be in Aurora to train in early June.

This reality check for paramedics can make even rookies feel like they've pretty much seen it all, before lives are really on the line.

Even when it's not real, Anderson said, "They can't hide. They either know it, or they don't. You can't pretend."