Disaster drill today at Cape Hospital
Cape Coral Hospital will find out today how well it can respond to a mass casualty incident.
A semi-annual disaster drill, organized by the Lee Memorial Health System, will be held from 9 to 10:30 a.m. at the hospital. The mock exercise is intended to test, train and prepare health care workers for major emergencies, according to Connie Bowles, a LMHS emergency management coordinator.
“We do two full-scale exercises per year,” she said, adding they are conducted at four of the health system’s facilities. “A full-scale exercise means we’re going to work with our response partners.”
During today’s exercise, the mock scenario is that a terrorist attacks the Edison Parade, denoting a “dirty bomb” that injuries dozens of patients who need decontamination before they are treated.
“It’s a bombing-type of, triage-type of scenario,” Bowles said.
For the story, an ambulance is also detonated and the crowd is told that it was exposed to anthrax.
“That gives us the element that we need to wash these people off,” she said. “That gives the decon (decontamination) team time to suit up and go through that scenario.”
The exercise covers activating the incident command center, setting up a tent hospital outside the emergency department and triaging “patients” – volunteer actors. Various twists will be injected into the mock story in an effort to test staffers’ ability to react to changing circumstances.
“It establishes a learning environment for the participants,” Bowles said. “To exercise our emergency response plans, the policies and procedures.”
Some of the partner agencies that will be involved today are the Cape Coral Fire Department, Lee County EMS, the Florida Department of Health in Lee County and the Medical Reserve Corps.
“We know how to take care of trauma patients,” she said. “A lot of times, these exercises are connecting all the dots.”
From the hospital, the participants will include the administration, safety and security, registration, the emergency department, the decontamination team, the trauma hospital, the transfer center and more.
“You have all the different departments playing a role,” Bowles said.
Back in April, LMHS conducted its first drill of the year – a hurricane-related event.
“Where the hurricane had set over our area for a couple days, causing us to use a lot of generator fuel and supplies and so forth,” she said. “It then cut across the state and cut us off from our suppliers.”
“We had to start evaluating, especially the critical care patients,” Bowles added.
From the first exercise, officials identified areas of improvement among the facilities, including needing to use “sleds” to evacuate patients down stairs and preparing evacuation duffle bags.
“It’s a learning environment,” she said. “It validates our plans and policies. It’s coordination with the other agencies.”
Bowles noted that in the case of a real large-scale event, there could be hundreds of people injured or people exposed to a hazardous materials substance or something that they just think is dangerous.
“We’re fortunate that we have never had a mass casualty incident in our region,” she said.
The mock exercise is not open to the public; signs will state that it is just a drill.
Cape Coral Hospital is at 646 S. Del Prado Blvd.