Castleview Hospital practiced emergency protocols yesterday in a mock disaster setting. In light of recent national events, knowing what to do in perilous circumstances can be paramount.
Students from the USU Eastern Sun Center played the part as victims in the mock disaster. The situation started out with aВ collisionВ between a Wisconsin tour bus full of senior citizens and a semi truck containing an unknown chemical. Area ambulance crews also took part in the drill and transported the victims to the hospital.
Dannette Moynier was assigned as public informationВ officerВ for the drill. She explained that the Hospital Incident Command System (HICS) was immediately enacted and a command center was established in the boardroom.
As the exercise unfolded, Castleview set up a HAZMAT decontamination station and processed 25 injured individuals who were then transported to the hospital. The first-response team was fully donned in biohazard gear.
Each victim was presented with injuries ranging from burns and broken bones to head trauma. Staff had to triage the cases and decide quickly how to provide the right care for each. One person would have been life-flighted using the new helicopter located at the facility. Elective surgeries for the day would have been canceled to make sure the operating room was open and available.
In theВ scenarioВ two would haveВ beenВ sent to surgery and two more transported to other facilities.
During the drill Castleview remained open and handled business as usual. Moynier said that they were pretty full in the Med-Surg ward forcing them to improvise. That is exactly what they would have to do in an actual disaster emergency.
Check out the image gallery below of the event.