Feature
How 'Hollywood' Special Effects Are Helping Train Medics
Hollywood-style special effects are being used to train people to respond to a terror attack.
A new centre in Herefordshire simulates scenarios to prepare staff and other emergency workers for a crisis, and with the threat level in the UK still 'severe' - there's no doubt it's needed.
Iqarus uses film set techniques to ensure personnel are ready if disaster strikes.
One exercise features an active shooter on the loose in a small English town, where casualties must be treated.
Another is set in Afghanistan, and a UN envoy working for the British government is surrounded by sympathisers to the Islamist group IS.
The centre’s sets are designed to be quickly transformed, complete with temperature-controlled rooms able to take you from the humid jungle to the Arctic Circle in seconds.
The scenarios are based on the experiences of personnel with past frontline involvement, with exercises constantly being updated in response to real-life events.
"It’s quite important to have as much realism as you possibly can within any training scenario," says Ged Healy, Executive Director of Training, Icarus.
"Dealing with casualties is unpredictable. It’s only when you put people in a real-type situation, you realise what they are going to be like under pressure."
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