Incident Command and Control Simulation Training at CSA-Bacolod

It is never a dream of mine to teach, nor is it a passion. Yet, the idea of relaying our learnings to other people wherein they can use it to help other people also has struck my interests. Teaching people how to save a life, is also saving lives; it is what I believe, somehow.

Initially, I declined the offer to teach at Colegio San Agustin - Bacolod because I have two classes every Saturday. Our team in Rescue Recon 1 was the one the school requested to teach the First Aid and Incident Command System crash course to their NSTP students. I was really interested to join the team but I had a quiz on my NSTP subject, so I declined. Next Saturday, we only had lectures. I plead to my Instructors to be excused in my classes just to join the team and help sharing our knowledge about the subject.

I’m just living a street away from the said school actually. I only walked for about a few minutes to get there at 7:30 am. I waited for my other teammates when I got in. It was my first time to get inside this school, honestly. I didn’t expect it to be this spacious since if you check it outside, it only looks like a four walls of buildings.

We got started around 9:00 am already when most of the students arrived to fill in their Auditorium. It started with a small program, with an opening prayer, singing of the National Anthem, Pledge of Allegiance to the Philippine Flag, and the introduction of each one in the team of Instructors.

On that day, they will be doing an activity about the Incident Command and Control Simulation Training. Wherein, they were given a situation that they have to handle with themselves using what they learned from the team previously.

Here’s the situation:

An earthquake happened and the intensity is devastating while they're at the Auditorium. What will they do during the earthquake and after that? There are possibilities of buildings that collapsed, a fire that broke out, and injured students. How will they evacuate the other students to the safest area? How will they search and rescue the victims stuck under the debris and treat their injuries? How will they put out the fire while rescuing the students who passed out from the smoky area?

After the Incident Command System was discussed, some have volunteered to join their team who will be responsible for managing the situation. When their team members were complete, the ones who played as the victims were chosen. We guided them on what to do when the simulation started and gave them a 15 minute break, so they could prepare further.

Few minutes passed and their break time was over. The simulation immediately started and time for them to execute their plans. The situation only depends on them now, and our only role there was to watch them over if they are doing it right. We can’t intervene in whatever they were doing. We’ll only watch and note their mistakes.

Speaking of mistakes, most of what they did were wrong. After the simulation, they have successfully killed all of their patients in the Yellow and Red Area. The only survivors were the ones placed in the Green Area since they only had minor injuries and were fully conscious. Sometimes, I couldn’t restrain myself anymore from only watching. From time to time, I was approaching them and pointing out their mistakes and giving hints on what they should have supposed to do. Unfortunately, most of them got overwhelmed by the situation and panicked.

At the end of the simulation, we pointed out all of their mistakes and corrected it as they got back to the Auditorium for dismissal. It’s okay if they couldn’t get things right yet. Actually, it should really take time and more experience to execute it accurately and in a short period of time, they already had familiarized it. So, they still did a good job. We heard feedback from them that they had fun during the simulation and surely learned a lot from us. There were even some of them who approached and confessed their intentions of learning further from us. We promised to give them updates about the next training sessions and they are very welcome to visit our headquarters to do more inquiries.

---

We still three Saturdays left to teach them. Unfortunately, I have my midterm exams this week. I can't join the team again, but I'll try again after the exams. It's fun and memorable experience. They were not the only one learning from us but we are also learning from them. Since teaching isn't my profession or passion, I'm learning a lot on how to do it properly. On my next lectures, I determined what aspect I have to improve in my teaching styles. Even so, I'll always try my best and I really hope that they can learn a lot from me.