The large-scale exercise brings together emergency services, civic volunteers and 23 research and industry organisations from 11 countries in Villejust, France.

Major European initiative conducts emergency exercise simulating mass casualty incidents

Press release

• The EU-funded NIGHTINGALE project introduces novel technologies to enhance pre-hospital life support and triage.
• First responders provide feedback on the technologies designed to ensure effective response to mass casualty incidents.
• The large-scale exercise brings together emergency services, civic volunteers and 23 research and industry organisations from 11 countries in Villejust, France.

9 June 2024

The NIGHTINGALE project, funded by the European Union, conducts a large-scale emergency exercise in Villejust, France on Sunday 9 June 2024. The aim of the exercise is to test the innovative technologies developed by the NIGHTINGALE project in controlled but realistic conditions simulating multiple attacks by a terrorist group. The technologies are designed to enhance pre-hospital life support and triage by improving the capacity of first responders to respond effectively to mass casualty incidents.

The exercise is organised and hosted by Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris in close collaboration with the leading European research and technology organisations, universities and ICT and Command & Control solution providers forming part of the NIGHTINGALE consortium.

A diverse group of volunteers, including members of civil protection agencies such as emergency medical services as well as civic volunteers, take part in the exercise. They test the NIGHTINGALE tools and provide valuable feedback on how these technologies can enhance prehospital triage during mass casualty incidents. The technologies that are tested include mobile applications for digital patient monitoring and tracking, incident management and command and control solutions, a next generation Public Safety Answering Point, emergency mobile applications for citizens, augmented reality glasses and a thermographic scanning system.

Reflecting on the exercise, Dr. Peter Jones, Consultant Paediatrician at Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris, says:

“The scenario involving multiple mass casualty incidents highlights the challenges associated with coordinating a multi-agency response to a large-scale emergency. Today’s exercise is the culmination of a lot of efforts, and it gives us a unique opportunity to test the functionalities of the technologies in a realistic setting. The cooperation between the technical teams and the end users has been key in the preparation of this complex simulation.”  

The novel technologies offer solutions aimed to strengthen the collaboration between emergency response agencies, to facilitate quick and accurate triaging and to enable citizens to submit alerts at the scene of the incident. The tools contribute to a more efficient and effective emergency and disaster response, ultimately saving more lives.

Learnings from the exercise will be used to further refine the NIGHTINGALE toolkit and to inform future exercises.

ENDS

For more information or to arrange an interview with a NIGHTINGALE representative, please contact the project coordinator Dr. Angelos Amditis at a.amditis@iccs.gr or Linda Henriksson, Carr Communications, at linda@carrcommunications.ie.

To learn more about the NIGHTINGALE project, please visit:

• Website: https://www.nightingale-triage.eu/
• X: https://twitter.com/NGTriageEU
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nightingaleproject/
• YouTube: @nightingale-triage

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101021957.

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