OGDEN -- With the press of a button on a macabre remote control, the high-tech mannequin in the chair begins coughing, moaning and retching.
"That's it. You're on," said Jeff Grunow, nodding at a dental hygiene student standing next to the chair.
"Mr. Sims, are you OK?" Denver Allen leans the chair back. "Mr. Sims?"
Suddenly the dental office comes to life.
The students in Weber State University's dental hygiene program are part of a simulation designed to help students from all of the health services departments work together.
And their patient is dying.
The ambulance is called. A defibrillator is attached to his chest. Someone begins compressions. But the patient is still unresponsive.
As an ambulances passes the window, a radio crackles to life. "Weber 1 on scene."
Paramedics swarm the room. Jesse Saez digs in his bag for an IV.
The room is silent except for pop music playing softly in the background -- a bizarre soundtrack to the dance the paramedics do around the patient, moving quickly around each other to insert needles, pump his chest and find his vital signs.
Mr. Sims is rushed to a waiting ambulance and enters the emergency room with a paramedic crouched over him on the gurney like a gargoyle doing CPR.
Controlled chaos reigns with students rushing to do chest compressions, begin medications, call for lab results.
A frantic hour later, it's finally over. Mr. Sims pulled through, with the help of WSU students.
For the first drill of its kind, Grunow, a paramedic instructor, said it went well, although there were mistakes along the way.
But that was the point.
"The goal is for them to fumble," said Mich Oki, a respiratory therapy instructor. "Students are supposed to learn more from reviewing than the doing."
Nursing instructor Sally Cantwell said a nationwide problem is students in various health fields don't have interdisciplinary experience. That's what instructors hope Friday's drill helped to address.
Students learn their fields independent of each other and have a hard time working with each other in the real world, she said.
That's why Cantwell and Grunow came up with the scenario.
Students from seven departments in the College of Health Professions worked together to save their patient and find out what was wrong with him.
"Nurses don't understand what we do. Lab people don't know what nurses do," said Janet Oja, a clinical laboratory science instructor.
Saez, a paramedic student, said it was the best experience he's had so far in the program.
Amber Galer, a respiratory therapy student, said the day was chaotic but will hopefully teach students the skills to avoid real-life mistakes.
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