October 13: a call comes into the dispatch centre regarding an accident in the woods. A young male has had an accident involving a chainsaw. The paramedic team rushes out to the accident site and jumps out of the ambulance ready to treat the wounded man. The first thing they see is a grotesque sight: a man in a shed bleeding profusely, his leg on the ground nearly 20 feet away. The second thing they see is a film crew capturing the whole scene.

This was how two solid days played out for the students of Fanshawe College's Paramedic, Nursing, Police Foundations, TV Broadcasting, Theatre Arts and Advanced Filmmaking programs at the school's annual Trauma and Treatment event.

The event this year took place at the Easter Seals Woodeden Camp, just minutes outside the city. Similar to this past summer's Exercise Peregrine event, Trauma and Treatment is a mock up designed to give students hands-on experience.

In this case, the learning experience is largely focused on the Paramedic and Nursing students, as they receive calls to their dispatch centre of various traumas scattered around the campground. The Paramedic students must arrive on the scene as quickly as possible, treat the patient as well as they can and transport them to the "hospital" set up in one of the buildings on site where the Nursing students then take over.

Students in the Theatre Arts program act out the traumas, and the Advanced Filmmaking students catch the action on film. For the AFM crew, the experience revolves around learning how to capture spontaneous moments as they occur.

Advanced Filmmaking student John DuGray gave his thoughts on the experience: "Trauma and Treatment is an excellent exercise that is beneficial for not only Advanced Filmmaking students, but also those training to be paramedics and police officers, as well as our Theatre Arts students … Not only do these emergency workers gain valuable experience dealing with crisis situations, the AFM students learn how to capture spontaneous moments without the safety net of another take."

"The Trauma and Treatment event is an incredible inter-disciplinary event that brings together students from Emergency Management, Emergency Telecommunications, Filmmaking, Television, Theatre Arts, Police Foundations, Health Sciences — Paramedics, Nursing and Office Administration," explained Romy Goulem, a Trauma and Treatment coordinator and AFM Professor. "The simulated emergencies that these students encounter, no matter what field they are studying, are invaluable learning experiences."

Great measures are taken to keep the traumas under wraps so the Paramedic and Nursing students can react without prior knowledge of the incident, but they range from the everyday accident to the gruesomely unthinkable to a multi-casualty incident at the end of the second day.

The victims of these incidents are Theatre Arts students completed with costumes, make-up and any bodily fluids that would go along with their trauma in a reallife situation. The sights, the smells and the screams are all brutally realistic.

All of the students involved have certainly gained invaluable experience from this event, and for many it is not something they will soon forget. So, if you're walking down the hall and hear someone talking about the guy who cut his leg off with a chainsaw in the woods, don't worry!