Caledonia Argus

Mass casualty drill a valuable learning experience

Posted: 3/30/04

By David Heiller
Argus News Editor

The mood started out lightly enough.

Michelle Schnick lay under a tree at Wildcat Park on the night of March 22.

She was one of 13 people pretending to be accident victims for a mass casualty drill set up by the Brownsville Fire Department.

ìIf I get in an accident, Iím going to make sure Iíve got a blanket by me,î she joked. The wind had a raw March edge to it.

ìClean underwear,î her daughter, Danielle, hollered from a nearby plot of ground where she lay.

But not long after that, the jokes ended and a drill began that included local ambulances, rescue squads, fire departments, the Med Link helicopter ambulance from Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center in La Crosse, and the Salvation Army.

Organizer Jane Bjerke, the Brownsville Assistant Fire Department Chief, called the accident in to the Houston County 9-1-1 dispatcher, using the word ìmockî frequently to make sure everybody knew it was a drill.

The scenario was this: a van carrying six people collided with a car carrying two people. They hit five people who were walking, so a total of 13 people were injured and had to be accounted for.

Four people were thrown out of the van, and the two inside had to be extracted using the Jaws of Life device. The La Crescent Fire Department Jaws of Life was called for that, and their volunteers did it. One person was in the car and one was thrown. Dummies took the place of real victims trapped in the van and car.

It lasted just over an hour, but in that time rescue workers moved from victim to victim, treating them as needed, putting them on backboards, carrying them to ambulances and the helicopter. Some people treated a baby, represented by a dummy. There was even a hand lying on the ground that workers gathered up and bagged in hopes of having it reattached to its owner.

ìItís a learning experience for us,î Brownsville Fire Department member Chuck Le Jeune said when it was over. ìIf we make mistakes, nowís the time to do it.î

He summed it up like this: ìTrain for the worst and hope for the best.î

Gary Meiners, the incident commander, said it went satisfactorily. ìThereís a few thing to be learned,î he said. ìJane did an awesome job.î

Bjerke went over some of those points when the drill was over with everyone gathered under a picnic shelter.

She said tagging of the victims went well, but they didnít have the medical people right behind them to get the victims to the treatment center. That meant that treatment people spent too much time in the field. Ten years ago, when the last mass casualty drill took place, rescue workers spent too much time treating people, she said.

Vicki Baumgartner from Tri-State Ambulance said the staging area wasnít set up, so it was hard to get a count on how many people were hurt. ìThat to me was a big factor, to get a general idea.î But she added that Tri-State would have had 2-3 units there

Med Link flight paramedic Mike Ashbacher said there should have been somebody telling his workers where to go. He praised Gary Meiners for doing a good job on the radio guiding them in.

Houston County Deputy Mike Ernster said the radio communication was excellent.

The training session took a huge amount of planning, Bjerke said at the end, and they were a little short staffed due to an earlier injury to one of their volunteers. Safety was a huge issue too, she said.

They used a mass casualty kit that was purchased from money from Houston County. The kits contained vests that identified workers, and forms to help organize the process.

Brownsville EMT Cary Koel got his first helicopter ride out of the night too, a requirement for EMT training.

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