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Virtual Threat, Real Sweat
New training service bridges gap between tabletops and live experience |
By Tim Kern
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As new terror plots were uncovered in mid-August, awareness of our collective vulnerabilities again heightened. What if the plots had not been discovered in time? Could future terror acts result in large-scale disasters in highly-populated sites? How prepared are we to deal with manmade disasters?
Environmental Tectonics Corporation recently announced the installation of their latest Advanced Disaster Management Simulator (ADMS) system in Bucks County, Pennsylvania for the Southeast Region Counter Terrorism Task Force. It is a multi-station, immersion-training system that interacts in real time with emergency team leaders, reacting to the participants' inputs and changing as they adapt to the unfolding scenario. For the past twelve years, authentic simulation training with ADMS has proven to successfully bridge the gap between tabletop training and live experience; however, a dedicated simulation system may be too ambitious a budget item for many responder organizations.
ADMS Training Services were developed to address the limitations and drawbacks in both the current methodology for first responder training and the cost of ownership of a full-scale high-fidelity simulation system. Using ADMS, emergency responders gain practical knowledge that directly applies to real world situations without incurring any of the costs or dangers that are involved with live training. The educational value and training experiences offered by ADMS are far more convenient and cost effective than buying expensive equipment to achieve minimal tasks. Furthermore, no advanced experience with simulators is required to operate ADMS, as ETC provides knowledgeable System Specialists to guide the training experience. By contracting training services with ADMS, users will never incur costs of hardware ownership, and always benefit from using ADMS latest and greatest technology and exercises. ADMS Training Services eliminates the need for users to be simulation system experts, while still allowing for specific customization possibilities. Users have the option of purchasing ADMS on a day-by-day or weekly basis, with the choice of long-term leases and lease to buy options.
Many response organizations are realizing that a typical "tabletop" training is severely limited in its capabilities and thus its usefulness. Tabletops and many computer-based "stimulations" include no progressive real-time element, no accurate means of recording the process through which the student proceeds, and no dynamic real-world physics element. Typical tabletop applications are highly scripted; role-playing is thus highly limited, and highly predictable.
ADMS is far superior to many competing "stimulation" systems in myriad ways. First, it is real-time interactive. Every input by the participants (individuals or team leaders) is dynamically integrated into the scenario, with realistic consequences. Real-world glitches can also be introduced: if a rescue vehicle gets lost, the participants need to proceed without it. If a piece of equipment breaks down, efforts need to be adjusted. When the wind shifts, responders' positions need to adapt. Additionally, when a team leader makes a bad call, others need to compensate: virtual lives are on the line!
ADMS training exercises are also superior to most "live" exercises. First and most-obviously, no one gets hurt. Further, expenses are minimized; and weather is not a factor. Next (and critical for evaluation and training), each action by each participant is recorded for later analysis. If there are errors in judgment, or if sub-optimal solutions to unfolding problems are introduced, the scenario can be re-visited, or even re-run, starting wherever the problem occurred. If alternate scenarios need exploration, they are available. If another team is to be evaluated (or a new team member is being integrated into an existing team), any given scenario can be used, re-used, or altered, to bring the team into coordination.
As in the real world, ADMS can present the unexpected such as unanticipated equipment breakdowns and non-availabilities. Exercises can vary dramatically while in play; a scene can play out naturally - constrained to real world time frames and realistic progression of threats, injuries, etc. - or the instructor can make insertions. He may move a fire or accident, change the severity of the incident, introduce explosions, changes in weather, etc. With ADMS, the incident - a fire, for instance - can be on the roof or in the basement; or outdoors, in a shed. A car accident can be on the northwest corner of an intersection, or along a straightaway; it can have fluid spillage (or not); it can trigger an explosion - and it can be different in the afternoon, for another group.
Under ICS and NIMS protocols, the four C's of disaster management -- Command, Control, Coordination and Communication - can all be set up and practiced, with each participants' input having a proportionate effect, allowing the simulated event to unfold as it would were it the actual event.
As an evaluation or training device, individual participants can also be tested in many ways. As one participant makes decisions, the scenario shifts accordingly, forcing other participants to adapt in real time. A particularly effective scenario can be refined and replayed, substituting evaluees; in a more diabolical scenario, one evaluee could be called on to react to several intentional "mistakes" by the other members.
As threats expand and scenarios unfold, coordination and chain-of-command become increasingly important; lessons learned in this high-stress but benign environment can become automatic responses, useful later in the haze of the real-world event. Though the cascading events are simulated, the participants will find that their sweat is not.
The possibilities for interagency training - coordination among fire, police, medical, and environmental units become increasingly important, as communities face extended threats, not just from disasters and accidents, but from deliberate acts.
As communities increasingly move toward coordination into regional-team coordination and cooperation, regional-team training will become more and more important. Simulation is a great way to find out where potential weaknesses lie: communications, rules, priorities of command and inter-disciplinary handoffs.
The mere use of the exercise helps establish and assimilate new protocols, resulting in more-fluid response and better coordination; and when backup or reinforcing units need to be brought into any given real-world scenario, the communications protocols will already be established in training, allowing instant cooperation among units otherwise unfamiliar with each other.
ADMS Training Services are now available at attractive low prices, competitive with a single "live" event - and the myriad of differing exercises can be customized as needed, to adhere to local facilities and assets. It thus allows effective simulation training in even the smallest of organizations.
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