(WGTD)---Rookie Kenosha County Sheriff's Dept. Deputy Genoh Cole says she feels prepared to deliver a baby on her own in an emergency after undergoing hands-on training at Gateway Technical College this past week. But it's not exactly something she's eager to do.
Lessons on delivering a baby in emergency situations are part of the state-mandated 720 hours of training that make up Gateway's Law Enforcement Academy curriculum.
Those particular lessons are made easier by a high-tech patient-simulator that fakes a woman giving birth. The plastic and rubber mannequin breathes, talks, moans and has all of the parts needed to mimic a pregnant woman on the verge of delivery. Sitting behind a partition "Wizard of Oz" style was Morgan Kaiser, Director of Simulation Operations for Gateway's nursing school. She ran the controls that 'produced' the newborn at the appropriate time, and also provided the 'voice' that allowed the mannequin to respond verbally to the students.
The 31 students who are in the current Law Enforcement Academy cohort split into small groups for the birthing experience. Earlier in the day, they received a more traditional, nearly hour-long lecture on the subject from Nursing School Dean Victoria Hulback.
Cole and Phil Davis, a trainee with the Racine Police Department, were among the half-dozen students who participated in the first 'successful' condensed delivery of the day. Both recruits were aware that just a few weeks earlier a Kenosha County Sheriff's deputy delivered a baby who wouldn't wait on an I-94 exit ramp just a few miles short of the hospital.
"I would never want to have to do this in the field but with this training I feel like a could," the 26 year-old Cole said afterward. Cole has borh bachelor's and master's degrees in criminal justice.
She said the simulated birth was more helpful than just seeing slides. "Getting that hands-on experience is going to help in the field," she said.
Davis, 26, the new Racine cop, said he too felt prepared. "Prepared to do it--not so much really motivated to actually want to get in there and do it," Davis said with a smile.
The pregnant-woman simulator is one of several 'patients' that occupy a floor of Gateway's Inspire Center that's designed to look and feel like a hospital ward.
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