Ep 103: Virtual Training
Episode 103
Published Jan 27, 2025
Last updated Apr 23, 2026
Duration: 35:48
Episode Summary
Full-scale live active shooter exercises can be logistical nightmares, not to mention the high costs, time, and personnel needed. An alternative solution is virtual training, where responders can participate in multiple scenarios, get real-time coaching and immediately apply the lessons learned.
Episode Notes
Episode 103 delves into the world of virtual training for active shooter incident management, showcasing its effectiveness and benefits. The discussion highlights how this innovative approach combines functional-level computer simulations with full-scale management exercises, allowing for realistic scenarios without the logistical challenges of traditional training methods.
The episode explores the training structure, learning process, skills developed and the advantages over traditional “live” exercises. This virtual approach to training provides a balance between realism and practicality with the added advantage of being able to conduct multiple scenarios in a short time frame. Virtual training provides a balanced approach to preparing law enforcement and emergency responders to active shooter incidents in a controlled, yet realistic environment.
View this episode on YouTube at https://youtu.be/vmN0MPcMYEM
Transcript
Bill Godfrey:Remember the last time you tried to plan a full scale exercise to do some active shooter training? Get a hundred responders together, 50 to a hundred role players. That was easy. And the training was great. No, it wasn't. That's today's topic. We're gonna talk about how to do this in a good way. Stick around.
Welcome to the Active Shooter Incident Management podcast. My name is Bill Godfrey. I'm your podcast host here at the National Center for Integrated Emergency Response. I'm joined by three of my other fellow instructors. To my left here is Juan Atan on the fire EMS side. Juan, good to have you in.
Juan Atan:
Hey, thank you for having me.
Bill Godfrey:
And first, your first time on the podcast.
Juan Atan:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Juan Atan:
First time.
Bill Godfrey:
Exciting stuff. And across the table from you, Coby Briehn, Coby kind of bridges both sides on law enforcement and medical. Also, your first time, man, Coby. Good to have you here.
Coby Briehn:
Correct. Thanks, Bill. Thanks for having me.
Bill Godfrey:
Is the weather here a little nicer than it is in Texas?
Coby Briehn:
Man, it's beautiful.
Bill Godfrey:
There we go.
Coby Briehn:
It's about a hundred degrees, so perfect.
Bill Godfrey:
And our veteran, Adam Pendley back in the house on the law enforcement side. Adam, good to have you in as always.
Adam Pendley:
Thank you. Nice to be here.
Bill Godfrey:
So today's topic was the how do we get the training done for active shooter incident management. And the challenge very simply is if you're going to practice this in real life with actual bodies, you need upwards of a hundred responders to keep it real, to keep it realistic for those that are in those incident management roles, the tactical, triage, transport, staging, command levels, the branch levels. In order to keep it real for them, you need a lot of responders. And then you also need a lot of role players, both injured and uninjured. And from a practical point of view, little challenging, Adam?
Adam Pendley:
Sure. So, I mean, planning any exercise can be a bit of a challenge. But when you're talking about a full scale exercise, you're supposed to build up to it anyway. So it takes, it takes some months of some additional stuff prior to the full scale exercise. But just the logistics of a full scale exercise, the safety controllers that have to be in place, the, the number of things that you have to do to make sure that people are in the right place, doing the right things. And the master event sequence list, it's a very complicated thing to put together and it's important to do those kinds of exercises sometimes. But there's a lot of challenges with getting them planned correctly and then getting them done.
But here's the tricky part is that even when you have, you pull it off, you get it all put together and whatnot, there are gonna be responders in certain roles that never see any of it. They get to see a small part of staging or they maybe get assigned to a perimeter role and they never really get to see how the entire incident unfolds and how it really should be managed from start to finish.
Bill Godfrey:
I think that's a great point. Coby, I know you have a tremendous amount of experience both in doing training in small group, you know, contact teams, RTFs, things like that, small group dynamics, but also a fair amount of background in doing these large scale exercises. From your perspective, when you see the large scale exercises, how much training is actually getting accomplished in those?
Coby Briehn:
Seems that it's more personnel management at that point where you're worried about how do we put a hundred people somewhere? How do we get parking? How do we get food to them? How do we get the normal requirements of any mass of people? Where's everybody gonna sit? Where's all this gonna happen? Then we go in to break it down into the safety, like Adam was saying, is, are we using force on force in there, so do we have to mask up a hundred people? Are we just gonna use blanks or where is our, where is our level of moulage? How much time and effort goes into that? It's just, it could be overwhelming and then it takes weeks, months, if not several months planning and practice before you even get to the real event.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. It's a big undertaking. Juan, I know you and I have both had to deal with these large scale exercises and moulaging patients. How long does that typically take to do it right and get 'em looking right?
Juan Atan:
Well, as Adam was saying, the staffing, you're gonna get all these folks in here. Then you have, once you get the actors, you're gonna have probably a few hours or so depending if you're gonna do the correct moulage to these patients that we're gonna have. And again, one other thing that just to hit upon when setting up these exercises is the weather. You know, where the location you're gonna have it, is it gonna be an outdoor event? Is it gonna be an indoor event? Do we have already that building secured? And it's a, logistically it is really a nightmare putting these things together and participating.
And as you mentioned, if you're playing just a small role at staging, you're just doing staging so you don't see the other areas that's happening in there, or being the contact team. Okay, you're doing contact, but you don't know exactly what's happening on the other side, RTF. So it's limited roles, but you don't get the whole big picture of it. And again, it is logistically, it is a big nightmare 'cause again, the staffing, you had to get all these people in on time, make sure that you start, your start time is at one given time and your ending time as a ending at that time. And how many scenarios are gonna be running? Is it gonna be one scenario, two scenarios, three scenarios? So it's a whole lot of things when you're doing, you know, it is great doing those exercises. Don't get me wrong. But again, logistically it is, it is kind of crazy. As Adam was mentioning.
Adam Pendley:
Then you always have role players and then you have some "role players" that really get into it and they kind of mess up the training value of what they're asked to do. You always have those one or two that really want to like show out.
Bill Godfrey:
I think you, you guys have certainly illustrated a lot of the challenges that come with these large full scale exercises that are done in person, one-to-one, boots on the ground running around. But I think my frustration is that so often in the public safety community, we're equating the full scale exercise with training, but it's actually not. Exercises, when you, when you look 'em, certainly under the homeland security guidance, the HSHEEP guidance, exercises are supposed to be a way to test and validate your readiness and identify where you have gaps that need additional training. And yet, far too often it is assumed that these exercises are actually the training, but they're not.
And so that kind of leaves us with the challenge, if you want to try to do four scenarios in a day, you're talking about a lot of reps, a lot of, you know, resetting everything very quickly and the ability to physically fatigue people as well as just the challenges of getting through the day. So when we look at, so Coby, I mentioned to you, we look at those individual tasks. So if you're training a contact team how to do a room entry, you can take, you know, what's your typical team size when you do that and, and you're, you're doing that, that micro drill with them?
Coby Briehn:
So if we're doing contact teams and we're just training on that, I mean, just the one, if we do just one contact team, we're looking at four or less, maybe five. All right. But that's the best case scenario. But let's go four or less. And that could take into, that's several hours if we're doing in person training to truly go through, you have the hallway movements, you have the breach approach from parking lot into the site. And then you have, do we need to breach it?
There's a whole other training aspect that happens there. How do we get into the door if it's not simply open? There's another avenue of training that has to happen there, which is, can be hours alone in itself. Then it's going through the door, which can be a while to get all four to go across there 'cause everybody's gonna have a different way. And it's just to get it standardized for this response, then it's up to the crisis site. And we may not even be at the shooter yet or the, what we would call the hot zone. And then are we encountering any injured through there. So each step, literally as you could have other avenues of training that goes along, which would divert any accomplishment out of there.
Bill Godfrey:
And you've got basically small group dynamics. And it's the same thing when we're working with the rescue task forces, break 'em down into small groups to teach those mechanical skills. So Adam, what's the options here that are available to us? And you know, what's a better way?
Adam Pendley:
Well, certainly to extend on what you both just said is what are you trying to accomplish? Again, if you're just trying to train individual skills, breaching a door, then that's training and it should be small group. But if you're gonna talk about the bigger picture, how an active shooter incident is managed and what it looks like from start to finish, then I think virtual training becomes a really good option because the amount of investment is already in the virtual training itself.
You get everyone in the same room and you start talking about roles from initial response all the way through what happens to the command post and potentially things like reunification and some other things that you may never get to in a full scale, you know, on site, boots on the ground type exercise.
So I think virtual training can fill in a lot of gaps when it comes to getting multiple reps, which is one of the challenges, addressing some of your safety concerns, another challenge. Another challenge we didn't even talk about was the idea of making sure the public doesn't get unnecessarily alerted to something that they think is happening in real life. You know, there's unfortunately bad stories of that. You know, again, you have a closed environment. So even with just hands-on skill training, there are virtual options for that. And then there's also, from the active shooter incident management perspective, there's a a great deal of virtual training that we talk about and that we do a lot.
Bill Godfrey:
And I just want to clarify, 'cause the word virtual can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. We're not talking about remote training, like being done on Zoom or that kind of stuff. We're talking about using simulation technology where we've still got everybody together in a room, but we have a smaller, more manageable number of responders on the order of 50, 60 people that can run through this training as a group, do a hot wash, debrief it, and then take a 10 minute break, reset and go again.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
And so you can run these things kind of all day long. Now there's mental fatigue, but the physical fatigue is out of the equation. And by virtue of being able to rotate people through, you get opportunities to see the different perspectives.
So Juan, when you, when you're playing this out at the command post and coaching those people at the command post, how would that be different if you didn't have this entire group of people that were downrange responding to actually be the ones talking to 'em on the radio? How much does that play into it as opposed to just trying to craft a scenario where it's just the three or four people in the command post? What's different about it?
Juan Atan:
Well, what's different when you're, you know, in a virtual setting or so, it is very different where you could talk to them and, you know, task them and give 'em nuggets, Hey, you might do this this way and all or that way. Whereas on the other side, you don't, they cannot see what's happening on the other end. So it's gonna be kind of tough. Like you said, that mental fatigue, it's gonna put 'em at a different level. But when I'm next to you right now, and we're at that command board, you know, you did something, I can say, Hey, let's go look at the checklist that you already did, what you were supposed to be doing at this given time.
Gives them time to think where in, if we were like live or so, it's gonna be more dynamic. There's gonna be, you couldn't stop 'em right there and say, okay, take a breather right now, look back, what have we done right now with this situation right now? So it's a little bit much more different where it's like you said that mental fatigue is there and it's more, I won't say relaxed, but you could coach 'em a lot better than on the live side.
Adam Pendley:
I mean, to extend on what Juan's saying, I think you get a lot more of a connection from the immediate training that you just talked about to then putting it into action. And then as soon as you reset, you're able to do it again. And you're able to do it from a different perspective. So, and to kind of extend on what you were saying, Bill, we're not talking about just looking at a computer. You know, when we talk about our active shooter incident management setup, the scenarios in the devices just kind of set the stage. Most of the positions in the room are actually hands-on. You know, we do a hands-on staging demonstration, the tactical triage and transport, the command post. A lot of those roles are actually up and doing things and we get feedback that it does feel very much like a real world event.
But you also have that opportunity to say, remember what we just talked about on the checklist when you arrive, you know, these are some things you need to think about. So you're starting to build those memory engrams quicker, right? And you get to repeat it. And I was in the command post for this scenario, well, the next scenario I might be on a contact team or I might be on an RTF. And so I get to see, oh, well that's why I needed that information. And it, you start to put it together more quickly.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. I completely agree with you, Adam. I think that's right on. And, you touched on something that I want to clarify. In the HSHEEP parlance of exercises, the people that are on the computers are at a functional level,
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
They're boots on the ground virtually through the computer, but they're talking on the radio. They're still having to make decisions. They're having to communicate with their team members. They're having to communicate over the radio with other team members, with the management structure. But above them, the management functions, the management levels are all at a full scale level. They're not using the tech, they are responding to the people that are using,
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
The simulation as a prompt, as you said, like setting the stage, telling 'em what's going on. And so they're at a full scale deployment. And so over the course of the day, as you illustrated, you get to rotate through all these positions. And when you were at command post or you were at tactical and triage and transport, and you're like, why aren't those guys answering me? Dammit, I've called it three times on the radio. And then you're the one on the contact team. And Coby, you, because you often coach the contact teams, what's it like that experience for them? Because you, I see them, they get overwhelmed very quickly, but it's a mental overwhelm, not a physical one, isn't it?
Coby Briehn:
But it becomes fast. It's not so much of a physical because there's kind of single dimensional, if you will, in that aspect, man, there's not a tangible car door. It's not a tangible door, it's not a tangible gun, but it does, is getting you into the mental aspect of it, of that virtual inset to where it can become very real. I've seen people break out in sweat, become, you know, just start breathing fast, getting into that tunnel vision that focused at the screen almost like a just a, I'm trying to say tunnel vision, but that focus right on that screen to see what's happening and not looking around to see what are the, what are the other guys that are at their table on their contact teams doing?
And it can, it can get 'em into that realm pretty quickly. And that's what the coach is there for. That's what the checklist is there for. Say, Hey, we know what you've been like, we know why you're acting like this. And when you go to this one on the next one, on the next scenario, you'll see when you're running that command and you're trying to get a hold of tactical or you're running tactical and you're trying to get ahold of contact or you're contacting, you're trying to get ahold of tactical, you understand why each one of those blocks, those are all busy, those are all busy pivot points and it can become, that overwhelming situation. And you have to just learn what's important, what do I need to worry about now? And I know what this guy's asking because I've been there before.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Coby Briehn:
That's the best case scenario that we're trying to get outta these.
Bill Godfrey:
So, Adam, Coby touched on the tunnel vision, and we talk often in the class. In fact, we've got a module that we do on cognitive overload and kind of how to manage some of that. Does it surprise you how frequently you see people, you know, sitting at a table in front of a laptop and they end up in cognitive overload in the middle of the scenario and they just tunnel vision down. They literally don't hear the radio, they don't hear somebody standing next to them talking to 'em because they are so, their brain is so overloaded and so trying to hyperfocus?
Adam Pendley:
Sure. But I will say that we usually see that on the first day, and then by day two, they're starting to pick up conversations around them. They're starting to, they're starting to not get the tunnel vision. And then by day three, when we have ramped up the scenarios where we have multiple attackers at multiple sites, multiple radio channels, and you have the command post and tactical triage and transport for each, for different sites and potentially even an area command, the students are getting it so much better.
And what that tells me is that because of the multiple reps allowing for that hybrid, virtual, and hands-on environment that the ASIM class delivers, it'll, it gives them the tools to overcome that cognitive overload. But the short answer to your question is yes, it's fascinating to see that something that starts out as just a virtual tool to set the stage can still set that stress level that we're talking about, but then they overcome it.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. It is kind of fascinating to watch it unfold over the course of the three days. You know, Juan, what's your takeaway when you look at a group that seems to be really struggling on day one, but by day three they're just knocking 'em out of the park?
Juan Atan:
That is so true. We see that in day one, as Adam is mentioning it, that they're struggling on day one. And then when they do those rotations on day two, say they did command day one and then day two on the fifth scenario, so they're back at command, all of a sudden the light bulb clicks and they know exactly what needs to be done. They're doing their checklist. And they knew because of that rotation going around of, you know, being on the contact team, being on the RTF, being on triage, transport, and tactical side being at staging. So now they understand the overall picture. So now they get a better grouping of, okay, now I know what staging is doing, I know what the rescue task force are doing. I know what contact team, so they now see that aha moment, per se, and that's what usually I see on that day two, if that student comes back to command, all of a sudden day one, they were like falling on their feet and then all of a sudden they're standing back and they're on their own thinking and Hey, I wanna do this, I wanna do this, I wanna do this.
So it's very rewarding because again, that rotation and seeing everything, what's happening, you know, as we go mentioned beforehand, when you're doing those large scales exercise, you're not able to see that, you know, you're sitting at staging, you don't know what's going on
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Juan Atan:
You know, you're at a perimeter, you don't know what's going on. But with our ASIM class, you see everybody, you rotate and now you get a bigger picture, you get more bang for the money. You get those tools in your toolbox now to understand that cognitive overload, okay, I know what, you know, if you're actually in a real scenario, in a real case scenario, you're in command, you know what that RTF is doing, you know what that contact team is doing, you know what tactical is doing. So now you're much more comfortable in that role that you're playing.
Adam Pendley:
And Bill, I wanted to add, one of the things that it also does really well is the integrated part of the training. And one of the things I see from a law enforcement perspective is when those RTFs do make it to the casualty collection point, and they're seeing actual patients with actual details in the patients and law enforcement saying, Hey, you know, I need the team to come over and do this, and watching the fire EMS folks take charge of that room. And I mean, you know, what have you seen with, as far as doing the actual patient care and, and managing that room?
Bill Godfrey:
You know, that's a really interesting question. So, you know, I'm skew a little bit to the older side. In fact, I'm coming up on four decades as a paramedic. But back, you know, so back when, when I was first in the field, it was very common that you were a paramedic on an ambulance. And the other three ambulances around you were basic life support with EMTs. And so if you had a car accident with multiple patients, it was very common for you to be the only paramedic there for a while, having to manage multiple patients. And it wasn't that we were, it was just that the environment was different. There weren't enough paramedics to go around,
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
And so you knew right from the beginning you had to manage multiple patients. And so that was a skillset we maintained. But over the years, over the last 20 years, especially with the number of paramedics that have entered into the workforce, we have largely, as a response community lost a lot of that mass patient management skill. And instead now when you get a three or four person car accident, you call for another ambulance or another rescue truck. And every patient has one paramedic, you know, this one's mine. There are many like it, but this one's mine.
You know, you get that one and you get that one, and that's how we manage it. But when you're the first rescue task force going through the door and you're looking at eight or nine bodies on the ground, and the law enforcement guys are there, you know, and depending on where they are in the process, they may have sorted the room for you. They may have done some preliminary triage, but for the most part you're like, uuuhhhhh, what do I need to do?
Adam Pendley:
Right?
Bill Godfrey:
And inevitably what we see on day one is people falling under pressure. You fall back to the way you've always done it. In the training, they fall back to, well, I'm gonna work on this patient,
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
And let the next RTF work on that patient. Okay, well that's two out of nine that you've got covered. This is probably not the best plan. And so we end up having to break those habits and in some ways reteach the art of managing multiple patients. I mean, Coby, I know you dealt with this a lot in your background and the deployments that you had to do, is that consistent with what you've seen as well?
Coby Briehn:
Oh yeah. Yeah. It's easily, it's called a getting in that medicine hole where you're just looking down almost like a version of tunnel vision. I'm just looking and I see this, if I just take care of this one, somebody else will take care of the other ones. But it may be you, it may be you're the only one there. So we have to kind of break that, look around to see what's worst. Worst is first is the analogy that you used as first, meaning that's gonna be first bandage, first hands on, getting to that.
And we have to look to get it. And if we don't physically see it, we're we getting the information, we're requesting it from the other elements, the other task forces that are out there, or other contact teams, whatever entity it is out there that's feeding that back to that person, we know the biggest goal is to stop the killing and stop the dying and casualty evac and any deviation from that, any slow down in that process, we let that clock start to win that argument. And we don't want that clock to win that argument. So the best thing to do is look around, take those couple of seconds, evaluate what's first, if you're not seeing it, who is seeing it? And then that coms back to somebody, this is what I have. I'm not medically capable to do it. Can we get somebody over here that is? So that goes into that priority of life, that whole triaging system of it.
Bill Godfrey:
You know, it's interesting Adam, I'd like to hear your perspective on it. It almost in this class, obviously we, the focus of the class is on incident management and how to manage active shooter events. But as a result of trying to optimize for that,
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
We have to go back to patrol cops that are suddenly on contact teams and recover the basics. You know, they may recall how to work the hallway and go through the door, but working as a team, communicating as a team, dividing up tasks, talking on the radio, talking to tactical, communicating with other teams, same thing that we just talked about with RTFs. We have to almost kind of also recoach them on the basics.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
How important is that in your mind to the overall success of the mission? 'cause I mean, you know, we could, you know, we on paper could manage the crap out of this thing, but it still doesn't mean that we get a good outcome on the clock.
Adam Pendley:
Well, in addition to reinforcing the priorities, for example, active threat, rescue, clear, that's very, it's taught in the material, it's taught in something they then have to demonstrate. But along the way in enter entering rooms and identifying the bad guy and engaging the suspect, all of those are reinforcements of tactical training skills that they've probably gotten along the way somewhere. You're reinforcing them again.
But one of the things I like to emphasize is how many soft skills they pick up along the way. Being able to hear somebody next to them saying something while they're also trying to push towards the active threat, while they're also trying to communicate on the radio. That level of multitasking, you don't get that in a lot of the day-to-day scenarios. So, and then understanding what intelligence is important, you know, what reading, what the information they're getting about the suspect and what's important to relay and what's important to be quiet and stay off the radio. All of those soft skills that they develop by getting to do one scenario after the other is invaluable.
Bill Godfrey:
You know, Coby, that tangents perfectly into what you opened with talking about doing the small team training. You're working with a contact team, teaching them the technical aspects, but missing from that is communicating with other teams.
Coby Briehn:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
Communicating with tactical, real time, while there's pressure and expectation because you're like, okay, you guys didn't quite get that right. Let's slow down and let's, you know, let's adjust this. You need you to be standing here, move here, do this kind of thing,
Coby Briehn:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
The the coaching that we do in the room, little bit of an art because they're in the, would you guys agree with that?
Coby Briehn:
Yeah, sure.
Bill Godfrey:
They're in it real time. You can't get into a conversation with them, but yet you can still coach them and help them get unstuck. Talk a little bit about some of the challenges that you see that are common and some of the techniques you use to coach.
Coby Briehn:
Right? So it, the contact teams can get involved into their one area or just get stuck in trying to do something and forgetting that they have other entities, other available assets to them thinking in the single dimensional plan. When there's, we start going layers upon it. What's my other layers is other contact teams, other contact teams after that. Once you run out of that resource, who can I get? Who could I talk to to get other additional stuff?
And then that brings it up to the tactical level of getting them involved. And it's all in the communication, understanding of the whole paradigm of what's happening here is I know what's happening in my room, what could be happening in another room, what could be, what is that other contact team facing? Is there anything that I, that I need from them or anything that I can offer to them to give that quick help until the other entities get there.
Once tactical is getting a hold of it, getting a grasp of it and starting to push those resources, those needed items down there. So coaching is an art in itself, and is realizing that we can't reteach the block, we can't reteach that entire section, but we can drop little hints, Hey, how about this? Hey, try this and that. Some of those little redirects, those little realignments if you will, that can change the, their outcome, their view of it, to give them success of this is a way to do it. There's often not anything that's the way to do it. Hey, how about trying this? Not saying what you do is bad, but what we've seen as coaches, this brings more success. Hey, try it this way.
And once they do it, they're realizing that, hey, this isn't, this isn't too bad of a way after all. 'cause we put it into play with our team, with the others contact teams up to two, three, then RTFs, anything like that. And it's all in communications and how to align those other resources, those other elements up around you.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. Juan, you know, you, you alluded to that when you were talking about coaching at the command post as well, but it's the same for the rescue task force, isn't it?
Juan Atan:
Absolutely, yes. It's like Coby is saying, you are able to guide 'em. I mean, not tell 'em what to do, but you could throw that nugget, like I mentioned, throw that nugget out there, see if that works. It is a way, it's a way of doing it. And if it works for them, all of a sudden they get again that aha moment and now all of a sudden you see it on the next scenario, if they're working the rescue task force that they tend to do what, you know, you gave them that nugget there and now all of a sudden they see the benefit of that. So, you know, seeing our coaching, as you mentioned, it's very different for everybody, for every scenario. But again, if you guide them, not tell 'em, Hey, you need to do it this way. If you just guide 'em, say, Hey, try it this way,
Coby Briehn:
Right.
Juan Atan:
See if it works for you, if it doesn't work for you, okay, go in and do what you were doing and see if it continues. But doing, being a a coach for our courses is that way. It's like, Hey Bill, try, try it this way. See if it works for you. You did this the other way. Try it this way. We have all these patients now in the room. Don't stick to just one patient, okay? Delegate your team to take care of patient one, two. Now if you need more rescue task forces, request them, request for that extra team to come in and help you because you're overwhelmed with, you know, your crew. So those are things that happen.
Adam Pendley:
And unfortunately in a real world full scale exercise, you would learn that in the hot wash and it would be in the after action report and then next year you could try to do it differently, but you would have to wait. Whereas, you know, as we do 11 scenarios over a couple of days, you get to, you get to try it again within an hour.
Juan Atan:
Yes.
Adam Pendley:
You know, so that's a really important point.
Bill Godfrey:
Adam, you know, you, so you do a lot of coaching in the command posts when you're watching people go through the scenarios, my perception is that a lot of people, if you sat 'em down and gave 'em a written test, they could recall the information and tell you what they're supposed to do next. But something about them being mentally in that moment, we've got their brain tricked into feeling like they're really there, this is going on, there's all of these things happening at the same time. It's overwhelming and the brain can't processes it. How important do you think that is to be able to train people through that? And what were some of the things that you've done successfully to get through that?
Adam Pendley:
Sure. So I mean I think that, I think you're hitting the point exactly is that by getting multiple senses involved, having to take knowledge and turn it into action. And one of the things we didn't even mention is we add the fact that we are able to put them in multiple different environments. So we have a school and a hospital and an airport and different types of scenarios that actually change the way you might have to respond because you have different priorities now. You know, so the fact that the virtual can change based on, and we can change it in real time, we can change the number of patients, we can change the actions of the suspect. All of those things that are somewhat static when you've planned an exercise that has a start and an ending point as the exercise planner, those things are much more flexible in the types of inputs you're giving them at the command post.
But one of the successes is that they're able to have that experience of having multiple things happening, having to remember what the priorities are, having to capture that situational awareness, having to fix things that have gone, you know, sideways and the whole time they're having to also do that in an integrated way with their fire and EMS counterparts as well at the command post, their fire and EMS counterparts at the tactical triage and transport, at staging. So it's integrated. They're getting to do the same, they're getting to take words and put them into action, and then they get to do it over again because now the scenario has changed a little bit, the complexity level has increased. So all of those things are really interesting to watch, develop as you see multiple scenarios.
Bill Godfrey:
It really is, and I would think I would wrap it up by saying this, there are people that say, oh, I, I always prefer to do things in full scale. Well, me too, but I also more strongly prefer to use the right tool for the job. And when it comes to training, when you're talking about the small group dynamics, yeah, I think you get people trained, you know, you want to teach somebody how to shoot a gun, you take 'em to a range and you teach 'em how to shoot a gun and there's an appropriate thing for that. You want to get into decision making on multiple teams and managing this event. You need a different tool for that so that people can see how all of the pieces come together. They can experience from different points of view, from different jobs and different functions, what it is, and they get an opportunity to do enough repetition that, excuse me, that the light bulb does go on and they get that aha moment, as you said Juan.
Juan Atan:
Yep.
Bill Godfrey:
To say, oh, now I get it. This makes sense. And then the rest of the time in that training, they're working on that stress inoculation, the ability to push through this to say, I've seen this before. I know what to do here, I know where this is going. And so to me, the reason for doing this isn't trying to be fancy or sophisticated or anything else. It's simply the right tool for the task.
Adam Pendley:
Sure.
Bill Godfrey:
Because when you measure the outcomes, which we do, when you measure the outcomes and you measure the performance improvements, they are substantial using this tool set. And I think that that is why we continue to focus on it and have such good results with it.
Well, any last words, Adam?
Adam Pendley:
Again, just to carry on that, I think the ability to get feedback and immediately put it into action, that's one of the main virtues of virtual training.
Bill Godfrey:
Coby, final thoughts?
Coby Briehn:
Yeah. Correct. Yeah. Just getting in that, putting that stress inoculation in there, trying to control the, your reactions and understanding the big picture of it, I think is the, that's the key takeaway from this is just the repetition of stress, really is what this is all for. Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. Juan?
Juan Atan:
Just to reiterate what Adam said is that, you know, get that action, what you did wrong, and then for the next scenario, you're already ready to fix it and you're successful.
Bill Godfrey:
And you get a chance to apply it correctly.
Juan Atan:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
I love it. Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming in and doing this. I appreciate it. For those of you that are watching, if you haven't liked and subscribed to the podcast, please do so. I wanna thank our producer, Karla Torres as always. And until next time, stay safe.