Johnston Community College EMS Students Participate in Night Ops Exercise

Paramedic students take part in annual Night Ops Exercise held at JCC.

SMITHFIELD – Paramedic students in Johnston Community College's Department of EMS Education participated in the annual Night Ops Exercise held all over JCC's Campus.

The exercise, including 12 real world scenarios and an escape room, is designed to not only evaluate the student's knowledge and skills competency, but also challenge their critical thinking abilities and capacity to handle a variety of high stress emergency calls.

JCC Paramedic Coordinator Brittany Baker said, "The purpose of the exercise is to see if being in that environment outside of the classroom, at night, with multiple high acuity calls – will they let stress and fatigue take over, or are they still able to provide quality and compassionate care despite being exhausted and overwhelmed?"

The 23 students were divided into seven teams and each team assigned an ambulance. They began being dispatched to calls at 8 p.m. They responded throughout the night, wrapping up at 6 a.m., simulating a potentially real EMS shift.

Approximately 120 volunteers participated in the event, serving as patients, bystanders, first responders, and evaluators. Support in the form of personnel, ambulances, radios and other equipment was provided by Johnston, Wake, Durham, Harnett and Edgecombe County EMS Agencies, North State Medical Transport, Johnston County 911, Communications International, NC Department of Public Safety and the JCC Fire Program.

Some of the simulated emergency calls included an infant left in a car becoming hypothermic, a patient in cardiac arrest outside in the rain, a family in a camper overcome by carbon monoxide and assisting law enforcement with an intoxicated drunk driver.

This is the eighth year JCC EMS Education has run the event.