Published: February 27, 2009 12:26 am      

Mock disaster serves serious purpose

Students portray victims in drill

CANNONSBURG — It’s fun to play dead.

You could tell that much just listening to the ersatz howls and groans of pain, punctuated by the occasional guffaw, rising from the bloodied teenagers sprawled around the shop area at Boyd County Career and Technical Education Center on Thursday.

But there was a very serious purpose to the playacting, and that was to test and refine emergency response capabilities of the school and emergency agencies.

About two dozen medical sciences students at the school portrayed disaster victims for an exercise that brought together school officials, Cannonsburg firefighters, Boyd County paramedics, the county disaster and emergency services agency, and King’s Daughters Medical Center to practice rescue and treatment procedures.

School administrators worked side by side with emergency officials and the students got a chance to see the real-world occupations they are likely to choose for themselves.

The dry run was built around an imaginary tornado. Some of the students were positioned beneath a mockup of a fallen wall while others were strewn around the shop. Most of them were festooned with bandages and fake blood.

Top district administrators were stationed at the Cannonsburg Volunteer Fire Department, on the premise that the tornado had cut power to district offices.

That enabled a realistic test of the “Infinite Campus” student information software used to retrieve personal and medical information.

Once the students were in place, a small band of firefighters came in; their job was to assess the situation in a process called triage.

That means dividing victims into groups based on the severity of injury. Those who need immediate treatment for critical injuries go in one group while those whose injuries are minor go in another.

Then the students went by bus to King’s Daughters. Had the disaster been real, they’d have gone by ambulance.

Jared Hill is a sophomore taking a class in emergency procedures. In exchange for swathing himself with bandages and slathering on fake blood, he got the chance to see professionals in action. “It’s what I might be able to do when I get older,” he said.

Jared may go into emergency medical technology or some medical field in the military. He’s thinking about medical school. too. On Thursday, he met workers in several medical fields and saw how they worked. “This shows me how it really all happens,” he said.

Meanwhile, Superintendent Howard K. Osborne, Assistant Superintendent Mickey Rice and Pupil Personnel Director Cliff Salyers huddled at the fire station with fire chief Richard Cyrus, who is also the school district’s safe schools director, county Disaster and Emergency Services Director Matt Adkins, and other emergency experts.

Putting school officials in the command center keeps them apprised of the full range of the disaster. There was a time, Rice said, when an emergency call would send him rushing to the site to find out what to do.

But it makes more sense to be in a central location where he can help make broad decisions.

Also, Cyrus said, being at the scene can be distracting. “You get caught up emotionally ... here, you can look at the big picture.”

The exercise builds valuable relationships among school and emergency officials, Osborne said. “We know them face to face.”

No exercise will run like clockwork, but that’s not a bad thing, Cyrus said. Mistakes reveal weaknesses in the system that can be fixed.

For instance, Adkins said, by midmorning it was obvious that the fire station command center needs more phone lines.

“It’s a constantly evolving process,” Osborne said.

MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com.