Fire-Rescue participated in Colleton Medical Center’s Disaster Drill Thursday 25-June. The unannounced drill took place in the morning around 1030. The scenario involved a roll-over accident with four patients being brought to the ED by Fire-Rescue. The patients had various injuries and arrived several minutes apart. Unknown to the Medic crews or hospital staff, about  a dozen other patients showed up at the ED front door by pickup truck, which swamped the staff. The hospital’s disaster plan was implemented and all went as well as could be expected. The drill had to be stopped early due to two critical real patients being brought to the ED by other medic units. Both agencies identified some deficiencies which need to be worked on, which is the whole purpose of these types of events.

This was first time the hospital used “inflatable” patients for the drill. These dummies were quite comical at times, especially when the pickup truck pulled up to the front entrance with 12 of them piled in the back. One lost his air, so he was pronounced DOA. They did prove to be much lighter than real patients.