Professional Documents
Culture Documents
This is a crime
scene.
Cars quietly pulled into the parking lot as the morning mist hovered over the serene lake illuminated
by dawn's slanted rays. In the early hours of Wednesday, August 26, 2015, PTI faculty and staff set
the scene for a disaster drill that would disrupt the tranquility of this peaceful landscape.
A getaway car underneath a tree with an innocent victim wedged under a front right tire and a
gagged hostage in the trunk.
A picnic blanket littered with a basket, plates and utensils.
A gun in the bushes.
A footprint in the sand.
As second-quarter practical nursing students arrived they lined up for their turn with Criminal Justice
instructor Shannon Wintruba who expertly fashioned all sorts of gruesome gunshot wounds and
blood spatters. (In addition to being a police officer, Wintruba is an award-winning make-up artist.)
Then Criminal Justice instructor Michael Gremba and Academic Chair Scott Domowicz positioned
the victims and explained the role each would play in the crime scene scenario.
The Scenario:
A convenience store robbery occurred nearby. The two actors hijacked a getaway car and escaped
to Raccoon Creek State Park which they crashed and abandoned the car, sprayed bystanders with
gun fire injuring many, some fatally. During the escape, one weapon was tossed into the lake and
the assailants ran off in opposite directions.
Shortly before 10:30 am Criminal Justice students and ASN students arrived for their field trip.
None of the students had been forewarned. Only when Domowicz and School of Nursing Academic
Chair Jacqueline Lever boarded the bus to explain the scenario did these students realize the crisis
that about to unfold.
As they sat wide eyed surveying the horrific scene and listening to the cries and pleas of the injured,
they quickly realized how real their PTI training would become.
This certainly gives the students a leg up on what to expect in real life. When I got out of my car I
heard someone screaming that they were dying, saidTrooper Abby Blazevich, PSP, who was on
scene to mentor the criminal justice students. So, of course, my first instinct is to run and then you
realize they are practicing. It got the heart rate going as soon as I got out of the car.
First off the bus
In their final quarter and about to sit for their NCLEX-RN licensure exam, the nursing students knew
their job was to help as many victims as possible as quickly as possible. Student nurses quickly
checked the victims, assessing each for levels of care and attention, moving past those who were
too critical to save and those without life threatening injuries. Each victim was tagged red, green,
yellow or black. Red, green and yellow meant a trip to triage. Black meant the victim remained in
place at the crime scene.
Our role was to assist the nursing students with the triage of the scene which is the process of
assessing the patients based on their injuries and the acuteness of those injuries, explained Bill
Pasquale, Director of Operations, Med Rescue Ambulance Service.
Next off the bus
Second-year criminal justice students worked in groups. Some secured the scene and assigned
responsibilities: collect evidence, photograph the scene, interview victims and witnesses. It was
important that no detail be left uncovered while the crime scene was preserved in its original state.
A long line of uniformed students stretched from one end of the scene to the other, as the incident
commander yelled commands. Step by step they surveyed the scene inch by inch uncovering bits of
evidence. A cast was made of the footprint in the sand. The gun was uncovered in the bushes. The
getaway car was dusted for fingerprints.
All the while the practical nursing students took their roles as victims very seriously, screaming in
pain, pleading for help, or lying motionless atop a picnic table.
So now the students understand what is involved in police work, how important it is to preserve that
scene, how important it is to collect that evidence, how important it is for the nursing students to
make sure they are attending to people who are in pain, said Trooper Robin Mungo, PSP. You
want to run to all of them, but you have to treat those who are most critical first before you move to
the next one.