University Medical Center and EMS practiced what would happen in an emergency situation with multiple casualties.
“What this does is allow us to learn how to triage, how to work mass casualties in case we did have a school shooting, a school bombing or just a mass wreck in Lubbock County,” said Chad Curry, training chief for UMC EMS.
The hospital staff and EMS worked together to run through a pretend partial stadium collapse scenario in which 27 people were injured.
The practice began with their mass casualty evacuation ambulance, or ambus, arriving with 27 injured individuals, from kids to adults. The staff worked to get all the patients the appropriate care as fast as possible.
Curry said the process took about two hours and they were able to successfully help the 27 people injured.
This is not the only hospital in the state with an ambus. There are 14 buses in the state that could respond to mass casualties.
“Our bus can hold 21 patients lying flat, 27 patients sitting up. All of them come with blood pressure monitoring, oxygen, heart monitors. We even have a ventilator on board if we need to provide respiration for a period of time,” said Curry.
This practice involved the largest amount of patients in a single incident compared to their other practices, according to Kerry Cotara, the clinical educator for the emergency room.
Cotara emphasized some of the deficiencies they would need to work on.
“We’ve had some struggles but we are doing really well. We’ve had some flow issues with the traffic, so that’s something we’re going to have to overcome because we have to adapt to the situation,” she said.
Curry also mentioned improving the turnover rate in getting people to the proper departments.
“It’s biannual for UMC and we are going to quarterly drills,” she said.
