We are hugely grateful to Plymouth Argyle for giving our very own green army of student paramedics access to Home Park to run this event, along with all the other agencies who supported us in delivering Exercise Pilgrim.

Learning in a classroom is all very well, and our University has fantastic facilities, but there is nothing quite like getting hands-on experience; that’s why we run simulations like this as frequently as possible.

As well a learning how to lead an incident like this, our students developed the skills to be fantastic followers, trusting those in the command role during the exercise to help them to stay structured in their approach to the management of this simulated incident.

Having live casualties not only increased realism for our students but also increased the pressure and allowed them to also utilise other skills such as their communication and decision making.

It was amazing to watch our students bring everything they have learned over their three years at University and apply it to the successful management of this simulated incident.

I hope none of our students ever faces a real-life scenario like this in their future careers, but they will be well-prepared should the worst happen.