Policing students lent support to emergency services exercise

Students from Wrexham Glyndŵr University stepped into the breach to help emergency services ensure they are prepared to help victims of terrorist attacks.

First year policing students were among those who answered the call to volunteer as casualties for a simulated terrorist incident run by Wrexham Maelor Hospital for its trauma nurses.

Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board approached Glyndwr for volunteers after the company that was set to provide the ‘casualties’ pulled out at short notice.

Matthew Quirk, Lara Greening, Rebecca Clark and Keryn Hallam answered the call for help and headed to the Ambulance and Fire Services Resource Centre in Wrexham, tasked with portraying victims of an attack at an office dealing with asylum seekers.

Nurses examined casualties with varying degrees of injury, from minor to critical. Paramedics and firefighters were also involved in the multi-agency exercise.

Rebecca, 24, from Ruthin, said: “It was good to give back and get a bit of experience of what other emergency services do as well. It’s good to gain an insight into how they work in that type of environment.”

Keryn, 18, from Brynteg, added that it was good to see the event from the victims’ perspective.

Lecturer Andrew Crawford said he was “incredibly proud” of the students for fitting the training around role play assessments for their own studies. 

He added: “Policing’s about helping out and helping the community, and they stepped up to the plate. I’m really proud of the four of them for doing that.

“They will be working as police officers with health and social services so it’s an opportunity to interact with them at such a level and if something like that were to happen, they as police officers will have a better understanding of what’s involved with other agencies – it’s a valuable experience.”