This week’s drill covers protocols for estimating the degree and coverage of burns, referring burn patients, and treating burns. While not every fire department will respond to EMS calls for burns, department personnel during the course of extinguishing a fire can come across an occupant who has suffered burns or may even have to treat a fellow firefighter for burns sustained at a fire.
Howard A. Chatterton’s Volunteer Training Drills – A Year of Weekly Drills includes a pretest that should be administered at the start of the drill. You can use his or devise your own based on your department’s protocols. You’ll also need an overhead transparency with outlines of patients, an overhead projector and screen, and pencils for each member. Be sure to review your local protocols and take the pretest yourself so that you know the answers before the drill.
Start the drill by having members take the pretest. Review the answers to the test, and then project the patient outlines on the screen. Review the percentage assigned to each burn area of the body. Select members to describe the treatment of a first-, second-, and third-degree burn. Round out the drill by reviewing the protocols for referral to a burn center.
At the drill’s conclusion, discuss what went right, what went wrong, and what should be done differently the next time.
If you have a similar drill idea and wish to share it, please e-mail: chrism@pennwell.com.
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