An innovative CrashCar simulator presented to CareFlight will help save lives across northern Australia.
Darwin International Airport and its partners raised $30,000 at their annual charity golf day in 2015 to fund the impressive training rig.
It is based in Darwin for training across the Top End of the Northern Territory and adjacent remote locations. CareFlight’s nurses and doctors use the simulator to help train rescue and medical volunteers at remote and regional communities in how to initially treat people when they are injured or trapped in a vehicle.
Built on a 4WD frame so it can be towed over rough roads to training sessions, the CrashCar has a removable roof and windscreen to allow realistic training without having to cut up an old car wreck.
It’s the third simulator built for CareFlight’s training team by a longstanding supporter in Sydney, Western Smash Repairs.
Other improvements include power for lighting for evening sessions – which suit volunteers – and a sound system to add realistic noise to the crash simulation.
By helping remote community volunteers gain extra skills in the initial treatment of car crash patients until aeromedical teams can fly in to support them, this CrashCar can help improve the lives and recovery of children and adults injured in vehicle crashes.
The education team at CareFlight use the CrashCar rescue simulator and manikins as ‘patients’ to train the aeromedical team’s own doctors and nurses in advanced treatment techniques.
These techniques can be applied to stabilise severely injured patients even before rescue while they are trapped in a vehicle.
