Camp Med Touts Bloody Good Time

We have come upon a crime scene, two victims down in the plaza.

We check on the injuries: One victim has been stabbed in the side, the other hit on the head with a rock.

There is lots of blood. The emergency medical technicians quickly put on gloves and go to work.

Except this is not work, and it's not a real crime scene. This is a camp for sixth- and seventh-graders run by the Virginia Hospital Center.

Camp Med is for kids interested in careers in health care, not just as doctors and nurses but as EMTs, physical therapists, laboratory and radiology technicians and other jobs.

During the week they're at Camp Med, the kids talk with lots of health-care workers about their jobs. They keep a journal of their experiences and get certified in giving cardiopulmonary resuscitation; it's the life-saving technique used on people whose breathing or heartbeat has stopped because of injury or illness.

Campers spend three days at the hospital and two days at the Northern Virginia Community College medical education campus in Springfield. That's where the fake crime scene has been set up.

Anna Hudock, of Arlington, checks one victim's eyes with a penlight as a nurse watches. Anna says she came to the camp because she "wanted to help care for people."

Will Martin and Andy Setchell, both of Arlington, are assigned to the crime team. In the nearby woods they have found a suspect (Danecia Johnson, a camper from North Carolina) and a knife possibly used on one of the victims.

Once the victims' bleeding is controlled and their conditions are stabilized, they are taken inside to have their wounds treated by other campers.

This is one crime story with a happy ending. The victims recover, the suspect is forgiven, the evidence is piled up, and the campers go to lunch.