In case of an emergency…

MILTON — Lifeguard Ambulance Service, which is celebrating its 10th year servicing Santa Rosa County, held its annual mock catastrophic vehicle accident event Nov. 16 at its main office on Avalon Boulevard.

Emergency medical personnel and local firefighters treated the two-car staged accident like a real scene for spectators of Leadership Santa Rosa Class 31. The purpose was to show the capabilities of local first responders and their teamwork during an emergency.

JR’s Paint and Body provided two cars for the demonstration. Both vehicles faced each other, with one turned on its side. A mannequin in the overturned car represented a dead driver while another Lifeguard emergency medical technician played the patient in the other car, breathing but unconscious.

In addition to Lifeguard responding to the accident, Avalon and Pace Fire Rescue and Bagdad Fire Department responded.

The survivor was trapped in her car, so firefighters used Jaws of Life to cut the door off its hinges and extricated her. Paramedics then determined she would need helicopter transport to the hospital so they rendered aid and moved her to a stretcher as a Lifeguard helicopter arrived on scene. Flight nurses examined the patient and moved her to the helicopter before taking off.

The whole process, from the radio transmission about the accident to the helicopter taking off, took about nine minutes.

Avalon Fire Rescue Chief Sid Wiggins was the incident commander. The number of accidents to which firefighters respond far exceeds structure fires they handle, according to Wiggins.

"We respond to trees down, flooding," he said, "anything nobody else does."

Advice Wiggins gave for drivers during the simulation question-and-answer session was to move aside for oncoming emergency vehicles.

"Make an opening," he said, "Try to move over. Some people think they need to try to outrun us."