UVM Medical Center issues confusing drill alert to staff

Confusion and concern Tuesday morning after the UVM Medical Center sent a robocall about a mass casualty incident.

UVM Medical Center staff received an ominous phone message at 9:11 a.m. Tuesday morning. "The South Prospect building has experienced an explosion. We anticipate about 100 casualties," said the message.

The problem is -- there wasn't one. Eight minutes later, another robocall message followed. "The University of Vermont Medical Center has activated its mass casualty drill," said the message.

"In this situation, we are learning from -- that is that we would want to emphasize the drill part and we really do take a conscious effort to do that," said the hospital's Dawn LeBaron.

Hospital administrators say they were practicing an active shooter drill, not an explosion drill, and the wrong message was sent out. The system pulled the message from a previous drill and staff didn't realize the message was there when alerts were sent out.

At 9:48, another message was sent out emphasizing that is was "only a drill."

"The last thing we want to do is create undue anxiety. Certainly, we understand the sensitivity of the issue and want to make sure that we don't alarm people. But at the end of the day, we really do need to test our systems and this is one good way to do that," LeBaron said.

She says staff members get a variety of different messages, so it's hard to pin down exactly how many people received the message and the exact timing for all employees

A fourth message later notified staff when the drill ended-- "The UVM mass casualty drill is now complete," said the message.

Hospital officials say it comes down to being prepared in case the real thing happens.

"Patients and families should be reassured that we do test this kind of thing on a regular basis," LeBaron said.

The University of Vermont Medical Center released the following statement Tuesday:

"The University of Vermont Medical Center conducted a mass casualty drill earlier today to test the hospital’s ability to handle a surge of patients with varying injuries. During the drill, automated telephone and text messages were sent out in error. This happened as the emergency response team was testing emergency alerts sent through a mass notification system. The messages were stored from previous exercises, and unfortunately did not carry language that the exercise was a “drill.”

We deeply apologize for any emotional stress or confusion this may have caused. We conduct drills regularly to test and improve our response during simulated emergencies so that our staff is prepared to manage challenging situations. Our leaders are evaluating the factors impacting the messaging error to ensure that it does not happen again."