RRL, student nurses stage ‘In God We Trust’ exercise

The St. Vincent and the Grenadines School of Nursing in collaboration with the Rainbow Radio League (RRL) on Friday, June 15, 2007, staged another field exercise, this time preparing the student nurses to respond to a plane crash in the forests of St. Vincent.{{more}}

Five officers from the Forestry Department, four from the Special Services Unit, one former cadet officer and 4 radio operators from the RRL accompanied 91 student nurses on the exercise. The four-and-a-half mile trail took the ‘responders’ through the Fenton mountains exiting in upper Francois in the Vermont valley, a trek that took them about five hours through rugged terrain which included knife-edge ridges and steep hillsides, sometimes reaching over 2,200 feet in elevation.

This training exercise was designed to give the medical personnel experience in Search and Rescue so that if there were a real crash in our forests, they would know what to expect and to be psychologically prepared for the task before them.

Extreme care was taken to avoid injury while traversing the steep terrain. As was expected there were a few slips and falls on the moist hillsides but no major injuries were sustained by the over 100 persons who took part in this exercise. The most serious injury being a twisted ankle, as most nurses only wore sneakers instead of proper hiking shoes with ankle support.

On completion of the trek, one nurse was heard saying that she was going to join the Navy because the experience stimulated her to seek “something more challenging” as a career, not that nursing was not a challenge, but the outdoor experience gave her new possibilities.

This year the field exercise was dubbed “Operation In God we trust”, named after the Fenton to Vermont trail. The main organizers of the event were Principal of the School of Nursing Sis. Sylvia Williams, who also took part in the exercise and Donald De Riggs, Director of the RRL. This is the 10th occasion that the RRL has staged simulations with the School of Nursing, each one with a different scenario. The association of the RRL and the SVG School of Nursing began since 1994 when “Operation Rough and Tough” was staged on Petit Nevis. On that occasion over 40 student nurses took part in mass casualty management and emergency communications (Emcoms).

If you ever hike the Fenton to Vermont trail, you will understand why it is called “In God we trust”.