They weren't real, but rather a few of the variety of mock scenarios that criminal justice, emergency medical and fire science students participated in as part of GCCC's Department of Public Safety Scenario Day.
"We've had a couple theft calls, criminal damages, just anything to keep them busy and active in something," said Brandy Unruh, GCCC criminal justice instructor. "We ran the gamut."
Unruh said there were about 10 scenarios throughout the day, ranging from simple calls from a man who lost his keys to homicide scenes.
GCCC instructors, Garden City police officers and Finney County sheriff's and EMS personnel evaluated students on their ability to apply everything they've learned in the classroom to scenarios they could face in the real world as a first responder.
"We also had a young girl overdose on a bus," Unruh said. "We're just trying to throw things at them that they've never seen before--hopefully that they won't see--but they will in their law enforcement career."
Unruh said she and some of the law enforcement evaluators got a kick out of seeing students work some of the scenes because their reactions were some of the evaluators' reactions when they were young officers.
"Their mistakes, you kind of smile about it because I did that, too," Unruh said. "As much as they were evaluating, they were also giving them constructive feedback."
Nearly 25 students participated, including some of GCCC's theater students who played victims in various scenarios spread across campus.
"We try to get them as much exposure across campus as possible," Unruh said.
One room in the John Deere building served as the squad room for the law enforcement department, where a dispatcher received calls and put calls out to officers. Students also wrote reports for various calls and updated one another as new information on cases came in.
"They're going to make mistakes. Whether we taught them to do something or not, this day they're not going to remember to do it," she said, adding that what she wanted to see is if students put forth the effort to problem solve, and more importantly, learn from their mistakes. "I tell them all the time, 'Just try. Nobody's going to die. Nobody's going to get sued from this. This is a scenario, so make your mistakes here so later in life, you don't make them.'"
Larry Pander, fire science program director, said Scenario Day helps his students because it covers all bases of what a firefighter would need to do during or after a scene.
"They have to go all the way through everything--it's not just the firefighting, rescue and patient care. They have to do the reporting, too, which is all part of it," he said.
During one of the mock scenarios, fire science students worked the scene of a propane tank explosion that left one dead.
Stacy Michelle, paramedic instructor, said Scenario Day gives students in the DPS department a chance to put a lot of moving pieces together.
"Instead of isolated skills, they may have to manage not just what they're doing, but everything else that's going on on a scene and work with inner departments and other agencies and see the dynamics of how things come together," she said.
Michelle noted that paramedic students went through domestic violence scenarios, as well as assisted the fire science students with a mock propane tank explosion scene.
Jose Garcia, a sophomore criminal justice student from Garden City, said the real-world, hands-on experience will help him and other students when they are on the real job.
"You can see what you need to improve on, what you did good at, and what exactly it's going to be like if you pursue a career in law enforcement," said Garcia, who served as police sergeant for Scenario Day. "I think it helped in a way that you're able to see exactly what you're getting into before you're actually there."
Scenario Day also shows how a case can start off as one thing and later progress into another, said Garcia, who is interested in working in a drug or gang unit in law enforcement.
"For one case, there was banging in one apartment, then there was some feet hanging out of the door. And you go in, you find three bodies, and you're looking through the house. You find a decapitated head in the fridge, things like that," Garcia said as an example.
Unruh noted the cases from Scenario Day were not left cold, and students have until Tuesday to gain new information on a case or to solve it.
"Nothing gets solved in a day, so they have a whole week to do follow up, contact witnesses for any of their cases, and they have to turn everything in by Tuesday at noon," she said. "That's realistic that they have some time. A week to work on a death scene is not enough, but they'll do the best they can."
Unruh believes it's important for students to receive hands-on experience rather than just learning out of a textbook.
"Textbooks are so supplemental in all of our classes. They're there, we ask them to study from them, but your memory works better when you are doing as well as learning," she said. "For them, the mistakes they made, they probably won't make again because it'll stick with them. The success and good they did should stick with them if they did them well, where in a textbook, you don't get that."
Contact Josh Harbour at jharbour@gctelegram.com
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