Newtown’s first responders recently participated in a multi-agency training for a mass casualty incident at Fairfield Hills. Over the course of about two hours on Saturday, August 8, members of Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps (NVAC), Newtown Hook & Ladder, Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire & Rescue, Hawleyville Fire Rescue, Dodgingtown Volunteer Fire Company Number 1, and Botsford Fire Rescue, as well as a few officers from Newtown Police Department, and a few medics, all worked together to safely extricate several patients from a staged crash.

The scene was created with three cars, one on its side, and nine “patients.” The “patients” were other members of NVAC who received special effects makeup from Tim Limbos of East Coast Tactical Medicine in Ridgefield. Limbos donated his time and talents to help make the training as realistic as possible, according to NVAC member and event coordinator Steve DaSilva. Limbos provided props for the injuries because DaSilva wanted to make the training “difficult” for each agency.

“The goal was to keep it as real as possible, so it was kind of an uninterrupted training … live start to finish, no pauses,” DaSilva said. “Modzelewski’s co-operator … met me there early that morning and we positioned the vehicles in certain ways where it would be difficult for fire and EMS and police to work on it.”

DaSilva, who is also field training officer and vehicle engineer for the local ambulance corps, planned this training for about three and a half months — he was sure to leave no stone unturned. The drill began with an actual 911 call to Newtown Emergency Communications Center so the local dispatchers could use it as a training opportunity as well. DaSilva gave as little information through the call as possible to make it challenging for the dispatchers, too.

The call sent Newtown Police officers to the scene to assess. The car fire that was also staged was extinguished by police and prompted other resources in town to be called. As mentioned, all five fire companies participated to some extent, and according to DaSilva, were able to use “all their tools and apparatuses, and devices that were needed to do the rescues to take the patients out of the vehicles. Every patient was trapped in a vehicle.”

With the “patients” being NVAC members, DaSilva said the training also gave them a chance to learn what a mass casualty incident is like from a patient perspective. NVAC was not alone that day, however. Ambulances from Brookfield, Bethel, and Danbury hospital participated, as well as Northwell Health paramedics.

Once the patients were extricated from the vehicles, they were “treated” on scene before being transported to a mock emergency department. A Danbury Hospital emergency room doctor and registered nurse volunteered their time to staff the emergency department. Also on scene were evaluators for each department who took notes for each agency and someone who filmed the training to be used as future reference.

“It was something that’s never been done,” DaSilva said. “Something where it involved every single agency.”

LifeStar was supposed to respond as well, something incident commander Ray Corbo mentioned, too.

Corbo is chief at Hook & Ladder and was told right away that a helicopter was needed, but within a minute heard back that a helicopter would not be arriving. Corbo said there was a real-life emergency that took precedent over the training.

Corbo and DaSilva said the training, overall, went very well.

“It’s good to see everyone work together,” Corbo said.

SHVFR Deputy Chief Ryan Clark said via e-mail, “The drill went well — it gave a lot of responders a chance to get hands-on skills practice in a large scenario working with other [agencies]. We do a lot of smaller training evolutions on the department level but seldom get a chance to work with the other departments and EMS in town.”

DaSilva was very pleased with how everything went and expressed deep gratitude to everyone who helped him along the way. He named several people who helped organize everything, including AJ Matturro, manager of EMS operations at Danbury Hospital; and NVAC’s Board of Trustees, who supported the idea from day one. DaSilva said the other agencies “totally jumped in” and gave him “overwhelming support” as the planning progressed.

DaSilva has been part of several trainings like this before, and he said he sees “such success” from drills like these.

“My passion behind it,” DaSilva began, “is really just hoping for all our agencies to train together, work together, and continually improve the quality of our responses and ultimately the patient care.”

Corbo said there were a “lot of moving parts.” The “patients” helped make it more realistic, as well as the special effects provided by Limbos. He said they “added another level of realism.”

Corbo shared it is “always valuable to be able to train with the other agencies” because that does not happen often. Corbo said that Newtown emergency services should be “proud” of the work they did on August 8. The people who participated in this drill are the “same people doing the same thing for the same price” — the cost of their time as volunteers, he said.

Clark echoed this, saying it is “great for readers to see how closely our local emergency services are able to work together. We have a lot of dedicated volunteers in this town who do top notch work in their fields — it’s very impressive.”

DaSilva heard a lot of positive feedback from the people involved and encouragement for more training like this. Many of the fire companies remarked that the drill “made [them] work,” according to DaSilva.

Clark said it would be great to do more drills like this.

"The biggest hurdle is the time it takes to set up and execute something of that size as volunteers," he noted. "It was a lot of work for [NVAC] to pull that off, but we are glad they did.”

Donations & Celebratory Picnic

DaSilva emphasized that every single part of the training was donated. The ambulances that responded, the makeup, the “patients,” the evaluators, the mock emergency department doctor and nurse, the paramedics, and everyone else gave their time and efforts to be able to orchestrate this at no cost to the town. Public Works also assisted in securing the scene for the first responders, too.

“I tried to challenge each agency in their own capacities, and, I gotta say, I’m just blown away and so impressed by how everybody came in and just gave it their all,” DaSilva shared. “We want to do the best we can for everybody. I think that’s why we choose these jobs. We want to help people and we love it. We have a passion for it and doing these drills together will just help provide better resources and care for everybody.”

Following the drill, NVAC hosted a picnic for everyone who participated and invited family along to celebrate. DaSilva wanted a chance to recognize everyone’s hard work at once, and the training offered a unique opportunity to have all agencies together in one place.

NVAC’s Board of Trustees provided two food trucks and an ice cream truck to the picnic at no cost to the volunteers. Local band Barn Rats performed music during the lunch, which was attended by hundreds of people.

All five fire companies and NVAC are always looking for new members to join. Members get to participate in drills like these and so much more. For more information, visit any of these volunteer organizations’ websites.

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Reporter Sam Cross can be reached at sam@thebee.com.