SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. — In order to be better prepared to handle real-life emergencies, local police, fire and EMS personnel came together Wednesday for joint training exercises in Kanawha County.
WVU Medicine Thomas Hospitals was the only healthcare system to participate in the drill. A number of hospital employees were at the South Charleston campus to hear from top professors with LSU about counter-terrorism and mass casualty situations.
Kristin Anderson, the hospital’s vice president of marketing and philanthropy, said nursing students and other health care workers acted as trauma victims for the drill.
“They will serve as real-world patients. They’ll be in full makeup and come in looking as if they are injured. It helps us to have those real-patients and influx of patients if we have to move existing patients,” Anderson told MetroNews.
More than 100 first responders and 45 volunteers took part in a full classroom training day Tuesday, before the drill on Wednesday. The exercises took place at Thomas Hospital, West Virginia State University and Shawnee Sports Complex.
Chris Kotecki with the LSU National Center for Biomedical Research and Training was outside Thomas Hospital where stretchers and other emergency materials were set up. He said hospitals are first receivers during mass casualties. The drill has to do with chemical and biological explosives.
“They have to, in some cases, decontaminate patients on their own not with the assistance of local fire departments or hazmat teams. By going through these skills, they can find some deficiencies and also find the things that work,” he said.
Kotecki said the drill was set up to give hospital workers, fire and police the practice they need before the real event occurs.
“They’re working with people they probably wouldn’t work with on a regular basis. They don’t know what they bring to the table. In a training session, that’s the best thing. If there’s an argument or a disagreement on a policy, it gives us the ability to talk it out. In real life, that is not the time to have an argument,” he said.
As part of the drill, Thomas activated its incident command system and stand up a command center. Kotecki said the main goal is to work on improving response times.
“Time is a huge issue. The longer for us to take care of business, the more likelihood there are going to be poor outcomes. The quicker we can get that done and more efficient, we save more lives,” Kotecki said.
The first responders plan to meet again Thursday for an action review day.