Responders to hone response skills in mass casualty drill Saturday

Emergency responders, school and area health care workers will team up to test and hone their mass casualty response skills with a major training exercise scheduled for Saturday, April 21.

Resort/Bear Creek Fire Department Fire Chief Al Welsheimer said participants in the exercise will include the Charlevoix Cheboygan Emmet Office of Emergency Management, Emmet County EMS, Emmet County Sheriff’s Office, Petoskey Department of Public Safety, Public Schools of Petoskey, Charlevoix-Emmet Intermediate School District, Johnson Buses, McLaren Northern Michigan Hospital, Munson Healthcare Charlevoix Hospital and the Emmet County Victim Services Unit.

Welsheimer said the incident scenario to which crews will be responding will be that of a traffic crash in which a loaded school bus rolls onto its side.

He said the drill will allow crews to work on skills involving extracting victims from the overturned bus and working together to triage and treat victims with varying types of simulated injuries.

“This exercise will provide participants with an opportunity to assess capabilities, plans, policies, and procedures. It will focus on decision-making, coordination, and integration with other organizations during a mass casualty incident. The expected outcome of the exercise is to meet or excede response capabilities as well as learn from all areas to improve response,” a news release from the Charlevoix Cheboygan Emmet Office of Emergency Management reads.

Welsheimer said the training also will include a first-time use of a new technology to help crews coordinate and track patients from on-scene triage to hospital care.

He explained the “e-triage” has been used in hospitals for a while, but Saturday’s drill will be the first time crews in this area have used the system in the field. He said the system involves using the same type of tagging system that is currently used to identify a patient’s priority, but will include a bar code that can be scanned and tracked from the scene, to the ambulance and to the hospital.

He added that the system will help officials coordinate which hospitals can accept how many patient at each triage priority level.

Officials expect about 30 student volunteer “victims” to participate in the exercise. Welsheimer said “victims” will wear a lanyard with a card that describes their respective injuries.

School district officials will be tasked with student and parent identification and reunification processes during the exercise.

Johnson Buses, a company which handles student transportation for the Petoskey school district under contract, will provide the bus that will be used in the exercise.

Welsheimer said the exercise is one officials have been discussing for several months.

“(A bus accident) is one of the things that concerns me,” Welsheimer said. “We have many buses running in the area all the time. How am I, as a first responder, going to be able to count all those kids? It’s a very tough situation to know who is on that bus. Each bus has a list of the kids who ride the bus, but who is actually on the bus can change from day to day.”

Welsheimer said the exercise is expected to start sometime around 8 a.m. Saturday, however, a final determination on the location of the drill is still being determined. He said the exercise was originally planned to take place on some Bear Creek Township property along Click Road, but recent snowstorms may make that site impractical. Alternate sites being considered are the nearby soccer fields or the Petoskey High School parking lot.