UK doctors team up with KSP, RedSTAR for wilderness simulation
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LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 22, 2025) – For the very first time, Kentucky State Police (KSP) landed their emergency helicopter on the rooftop landing pad at the University of Kentucky Albert B. Chandler Hospital. It was all part of UK’s Wilderness Medical Day.
Each semester, emergency medicine residents at UK HealthCare participate in Wilderness Medical Day. It’s a day dedicated to learning and practicing skills that are needed in a wilderness emergency.
This year, the residents participated in an emergency simulation in partnership with the KSP and RedSTAR Wilderness, which serves the Red River Gorge area.
Residents gathered on a farm in a rural area of Lexington to simulate a remote location. The practice emergency scenario they were given was a mass casualty incident from lightning strikes.
The simulation started with a lecture about wilderness medicine, mass casualty triage and set the scene for the emergency they would be responding to.
Then, the residents began by responding to the practice emergency involving lightning strikes, where multiple patients were injured. Residents arrived at the field to assess their patients and appropriately triage them, provide care and determine who needed to be transported to the hospital.
A new element added to this year’s simulation was the KSP helicopter. The KSP team had the opportunity to practice landing its helicopter at UK Chandler Hospital.
Residents learned the inner workings of helicopter management, flight medicine, rope extraction and hoisting. Then, they simulated the extrication, or rescue of the patient, lifting them into the helicopter.
The practice patient was then airlifted by KSP to UK Chandler Hospital and handed off to UK HealthCare’s emergency medicine and trauma teams.
“It’s important for our residents to get an exposure to what happens outside of the hospital,” said Blake Davidson, M.D., UK College of Medicine assistant program director, emergency medicine residency. “We’re often so focused on hospital management that we don’t see what the first responders have to deal with daily. These outdoor emergencies, particularly, are becoming more common, especially in Kentucky, where we need to use resources like the RedSTAR wilderness group.”
Working directly with first responders on-site and learning how to treat patients at the scene before they arrive at the hospital are skills that make the residents well-rounded health care providers.
“A lot of our residents go out to community hospitals, and they may be asked to be EMS medical directors. So, they need to be able to interact with these people and see how their world is outside of the hospital,” said Christopher Belcher, M.D., UK College of Medicine associate program director, emergency medicine residency. “They may be creating protocols that directly influence how those groups take care of patients. We interact with EMS every single day; they bring us patients all day long and we’re talking at the bedside, but we don’t always go out and see what they do on a day-to-day basis. It’s really cool for the residents to get this experience.”
Belcher and Davidson are thankful for their relationship with KSP and RedSTAR to help make this simulation possible. They said RedSTAR is a great resource for emergency medicine residents to learn from, especially in Kentucky where there are a lot of rural areas and nature activities.
“RedSTAR offers a very specialized service,” said Davidson. “I think it’s an important resource for our state in general. They do a lot as far as wilderness medicine education and outreach. Their service is crucial in a state like ours that is so rural and remote. Most of them are volunteers, and they’re able to go out there and risk their lives to save other people.”
The emergency medicine program will continue to partner with RedSTAR and KSP for Wilderness Medical Day to ensure the residents learn how to address wilderness emergencies through hands-on practice.
Learn more about UK’s emergency medicine residency program here. Photos and video from Wilderness Medical Day are available in this media kit.
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