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Jenni Carter of Stafford Fire and Rescue looks over the
Steve Dove of the Chancellor Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department listens to how the new SimMan functions A monitor displays vital signs from a computerized dummy for students. |
BY JIM HALL
Bob Hagan said he's surprised when injured or ill people say that they were lucky to have a trained rescue worker come to their aid.
"Luck has nothing to do with it," Hagan told people gathered yesterday at the opening of the Rappahannock EMS Regional Training and Simulation Center.
Hagan, president of the Fredericksburg Area Chamber of Commerce, said rescue workers are trained because they willingly attend classes at facilities like the new center in Fredericksburg.
The Hunter Street building is the first of its kind for the area and home to the Rappahannock EMS Council and its training programs.
More than 600 people will pass through the center each year to attend basic and intermediate emergency medical services classes.
The first of these--a 72-hour refresher course for those with advanced life support certificates--began Monday night. A 300-hour, intermediate EMT class starts in two weeks.
"It's going to be used. That's what we want," Christina Skinner, council director, said.
The newly renovated center is more than twice the size of the council's former training center on Fall Hill Avenue. It features office space, two classrooms and three simulation rooms, with life-size, computer-operated manikins.
The building was once the home of the Fredericksburg Health Department, and later, the Lloyd F. Moss Free Clinic. The free clinic moved to a new building on the Mary Washington Hospital property.
Now after a four-month, $265,000 renovation, the center may be the only building in the area with an ambulance inside. The Spotsylvania Volunteer Rescue Squad donated an ambulance "box," the rear portion where patients are treated. The contractor breached a wall during renovations to place it inside.
"Students can experience what it's like to take care of patients in confined quarters," said Linda Harris, regional systems coordinator for the council.
One of the center's simulation rooms resembles a trauma room at Mary Washington Hospital.
"Everything will give the same feel of being in the emergency department," said Natalie Root, clinical nurse specialist at the hospital.
The other is modeled after a labor-and-delivery room at the hospital. Called the OB Station, it features a manikin named Rosemary and her baby.
MediCorp Health System, parent company of the hospital, is leasing the building to REMS for 15 years at $1 per year. The hospital plans to have its nurses and technicians train there.
REMS is the regional association of about 2,000 volunteer and career rescue workers. Seventy-seven licensed agencies from across the region are members.
Fauquier County's Department of Fire and Emergency Services is one of the members. Kurt Kight, deputy chief, toured the center yesterday and said that his agency sends members for advanced life support and other classes.
The new center, Kight said, will "enhance what was already a great service."
Jim Hall: 540/374-5433| Rappahannock EMS Council
The Rappahannock EMS Council serves fire and rescue agencies from 10 localities, including: Caroline, Culpeper, Fauquier, Fredericksburg, King George, Orange, Rappahannock, Spotsylvania, Stafford and Westmoreland.
Fire and rescue services from Fort A. P. Hill, Dahlgren, Quantico, and local commercial and
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