Goochland holds tactical emergency casualty care training at elementary school

Emergency vehicles will be visible at Goochland Elementary School on Sunday as Goochland County Fire-Rescue and the Sheriff’s Office run a Tactical Emergency Casualty Care class meant to sharpen trauma response when scenes turn dangerous. County officials said the public should not be alarmed, because the activity is part of ongoing training with Goochland County Public Schools.

The county said the class is scheduled for June 24 and 25, and the Sunday activity at Goochland Elementary is drill work, not a real emergency. The National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians says TECC prepares EMS practitioners and other prehospital providers to care for patients in a civilian tactical environment, including work in the hot zone, where there is direct threat, the warm zone, where the threat is indirect, and the cold zone, where evacuation care begins.

That training matters in a rural county where the first unit on scene may have to stabilize a patient before a hospital handoff after a shooting, a serious crash or another high-risk incident. NAEMT says the provider course is a 16-hour classroom class for EMTs and paramedics. Successful students receive a certificate of completion, a wallet card valid for four years and 16 hours of CAPCE credit.

Goochland has hosted similar training before. County posts show a TECC class at Byrd Elementary School, and a previous social post said the county has partnered with Virginia EMS Training Group, the Sheriff’s Office and Fire-Rescue for a course taught by Virginia EMS Training Group and Fort Lee Fire & Emergency Services.

The exercise comes as Goochland County continues to expand its public-safety footprint. On April 7, county leaders broke ground on Fire-Rescue Station 8 in Sandy Hook, which the county has described as the first new fire-rescue district added in more than 60 years. Together, the school-based drill and the new station point to a county building more specialized response capacity for emergencies where minutes, and often seconds, decide outcomes.