Summary: Cooper University Health Care’s Section of Military, Diplomatic & Field Surgical Affairs (MILDAF), in conjunction with members of Cooper’s Trauma, Surgical, and Emergency Departments as well as the Salem County, New Jersey’s Sheriff’s Office and Office of Emergency Management developed a model for Tactical Trauma Training for all levels of Law Enforcement, EMS, and Fire/Rescue members. In April 2024, more than 275 law enforcement, EMS providers, firefighters, and rescue personnel from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New York attended the week-long Mid-Atlantic Severe Situation Exercise (MASSE), which focused on point-of-injury management for emergency responders. This exercise provided high-fidelity training with cadavers within simulated settings of real-world situations. Events such as MASSE serve to develop and improve life-saving skills for first responders to ensure preparedness in the face of unpredictable, complex, and dangerous real-life crises. Scenarios at the MASSE training event included farm vehicle accidents, man-in-the-machine incidents, domestic violence, hostage situations, and an austere location medical intervention lab. First responders in attendance gained new skills to better equip them to deal with potential real-world situations and save lives. Participants learned proper tourniquet placement from US Army medical personnel embedded at Cooper. Participants also received hands-on training from surgeons in the cadaver lab. Cadaver lab topics included emergent airway maneuvers, intra-osseous vascular access, needle decompression of tension pneumothorax, and arterial bleeding control techniques in both extremity and junctional wounds. Instructors then challenged participants to use these skills in three unique live-fire scenarios and then provided immediate actionable feedback in a tactical and medical debrief. By pooling resources and expertise, MASSE serves to improve the skills of local first responders and EMS, thereby enhancing public safety. The MILDAF team and their partners look forward to continually improving and executing high-fidelity hands-on training.
Sarkisian et al. (Sun,) studied this question.