Then things went from bad to worse — he stopped breathing and his heart stopped beating.

A small group of firefighters quickly started CPR, set up an automatic external defibrillator and inserted an airway into his throat.

Zach, however, is not a living, breathing man. He is a highly sophisticated mannequin who can be set up to experience every imaginable medical crisis so that emergency medical personnel can get the most realistic training possible.

On Tuesday, a crew from Simulation in Motion — Iowa (SIM-IA), a program of the University of Iowa College of Nursing, brought that training to Badger.

-Messenger photo by Bill Shea
Zach, a $250,000 mannequin, was the focus of some training scenarios provided in Badger Tuesday evening by Simulation in Motion — Iowa. The mannequin’s eyes blink, its pupils dilate, its chest rises and falls as if breathing and it has a pulse. It can be programmed to bleed and even vomit.

“When our training officers discovered SIM-IA and what it could provide for training to our department, it was a unanimous decision to set up training with them,” said Chad Swanson, a captain and emergency medical technician in the Badger Fire Department. “We want to provide an excellent service to our community. The community of Badger has greatly supported us throughout the years and we want to continue to improve the level of emergency response services we can provide to them.”

The training was provided for free thanks to funding from the Wellmark Foundation.

“The confidence and competence that SIM-IA creates in these teams is amazing,” said Laura Jackson, executive vice president of health improvement for Wellmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

And Tuesday evening’s session was a milestone for the simulation training program — it was training session No. 1,000.

Zach the mannequin and a similar one came to Badger in a $1.2 million truck, one of three such rigs owned by Simulation in Motion — Iowa.

-Messenger photo by Bill Shea
A Simulation in Motion — Iowa truck was in front of the Badger firehouse Tuesday evening for a training session. The $1.2 million truck has a Freightliner chassis with a rear body made by Rosenbauer, a manufacturer of fire apparatus. Based in Sioux City, it is one of three trucks operated by SIM — IA.

That truck brought the volunteers in Badger the same level of training that the fulltime firefighter-paramedics in Des Moines receive, according Brian Rechkemmer, program director for SIM – IA. Bringing that same level of training to all communities is the mission of the program, he said.

“It shouldn’t matter where you live in Iowa, you should be able to get the same care throughout the state,” he said.

On Tuesday evening, the Badger firefighters split into two groups. For the first training session, one group handled Zach’s chest pain leading to cardiac arrest while another treated a second mannequin suffering from a stroke.

“We are a volunteer department and don’t have the call volume that a fulltime department does, so we may not see cardiac or stroke patients as often,” Swanson said. “Because of this, we have to train that much harder to maintain our high standards.”

The concept of taking advanced simulator training on the road to Iowa’s emergency medical services providers emerged from a grant awarded in 2018 by the Helmsley Charitable Trust. That grant paid for a needs assessment. After a year’s worth of surveys and visits with EMS providers, advanced training was identified as a need.

A second grant was received from the Helmsley Charitable Trust in 2021 to start the program. The first truck was delivered in June 2022, and the first training session was held the following month.