We want to start this post by giving a brief trigger warning. The topics discussed in this post pertain to mass casualty events, school shootings, death, gun violence, and bombings/terrorist attacks. Please proceed with caution if you are sensitive to these topics.

No one in healthcare or education (or anyone for that matter) wants to think about what they would have to do in the event of a mass shooting or multiple casualty events. However, these topics are becoming increasingly a reality in our everyday lives.

For this episode, we sat down with a legend in the sports medicine emergency care realm, Mr. Ed Strapp. Ed is a state trooper and flight paramedic with the Maryland State Police and an athletic trainer. He is the co-owner of Sports Medicine Emergency Management and a massive voice in the advocacy of athletic trainers and emergency care.

In our chat with Ed, we talked about the part athletic trainers can and should play in the care and management of emergency care in an MCI (mass casualty incident).

First, as athletic trainers, our most important job in the first few minutes is to create calm out of the chaos. In the first 5-10 minutes our goal is to create organization and planning to identify what has happened and triage the victims involved. Our goal should be to identify as many people that are hurt and how bad, as we can and to create a sorting system that can help other medical professionals and EMS to provide the most timely and accurate care possible.

In a question submitted by a listener and follower of the show, we asked Ed, as athletic trainers is our top priority only to our athletes/coaches, or do we care for the fans as well? Do we go off who is closest to us? How do we decide who we take care of first?

Ed- “…Look at your position statement and your policies and procedures. For most in athletics, your primary concern will be athletes, officials, coaches, and anyone affiliated with that event.” There should be separate policies that are specific to athletics. Do not just rely on the policies and procedures that your institution (college/secondary school) provides during school hours.

Any another section Em and Victoria asked what should be included in the “oh shit” kits and whether should we have separate kits (from our medical bags). For the information here listen to our episode.

A question that we received multiple times on Twitter asked who we (ATs) should include in our task force for our MCI procedures.

• Campus Admin- AD, school superintendents/presidents, principals
• Community Resources- SRO(school resource officer), local Fire/Police/EMS
• Community- radio, tv stations, social media

Things that need to be included in your EAP to help it run smoothly.

• Coaches training
• Meetings with athletic departments
• Tabletop exercises
• Scenario Training- anytime there are changes with personnel; seasonally; once a year community training
• After action reports
• De-briefs

A fun piece of advice Ed included was how to market yourself as an AT to the local community such as to police, EMS, Fire, etc. I think all ATs should listen to this to learn ways to connect and earn the trust of the local healthcare professionals.

To end our discussion on this topic we talked about what ATs should do in the aftermath of an MCI. Our first step was to make sure you are prepared. I good plan and policy/procedures will help tremendously in knowing that you did everything you could and should have done.

Also if you are dealing with the mental aspect of what happened, you can reach out to ATCares to help with the response. Also suggested was reaching out to school, hospital, and team counseling services.

This episode was a much-needed topic full of information that athletic trainers need to know or refresh themselves on. The entire episode is available wherever you listen to your podcast so please check it out and let us know how you plan to use the advice and information in your setting.

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Thanks for reading and as always, Remember most things are debATable!