use of live casualties in training

[chappie]

My FBU region have told me we cant do it because the brigade are not insured to do it. Other brigades seem to use live casualties so whats the difference? I want to be able to use live casualties but need some evidence to back me up. Any help would be appreciated.

[fireftrm]

The FBU cannot know what insurance cover your FRA has? This is not something they are the experts in, the FRA is. So it is your management you should be asking. If these 'casualties' are FRA employees then they are automatically covered by insurance, as they  must be by law. If they are non-employed then this is where you need to check. Certainly live casualties are used by many emergency services in exercises and the FBU have absolutley nothing to do with this. They could be asked to make H&S recommendations, but as to who is and who is not insured then the employers is the only reliable source of information. There are groups, suchas the Casualty Union, who provide trained 'live casualties' for larger exercises and some that charge. Perhaps the 'FBU' you refer to is your rep and the live casualties being some people from outside the service who you were going to ask? All this in a locallly organised exercise without going through your Learning & Development function? If so then look at who you are asking for information and how you should really be approaching the event?

[Benfire]

I've rescued live casualties in training and been live casualty many times, both with the AFS and RDS.  The AFS will use the casualty union  for large annual exercises, but for normal training, (BA particularly), we have often put a live casualty in our training rig along with dummies, which makes the rescue much more realistic, and forces use of proper casualty handling.