Today was one of those days that drain you, despite how interesting it played out. I’m on the disaster committee team and twice a year we plan a big disaster drill for the hospital. Sometimes it includes the entire community, sometimes it just the hospital. We spend weeks and months planning this exercise in pushing the limits of our capabilities to prepare for the disasters that nature inevitably visits upon the world.
It’s only been two and half years since a tornado tore through our city and killed twenty-five. We learned then what happens in reality and what happen in a drill are quite different things. You might be surprised when I qualify that statement to mean it works better in reality than in a drill…at least short term. The hospital staff hates the drills; it’s just another pain in their fanny’s. In reality people pour in to help when a disaster happens.
To help make it seem more real, we go the route of moulage. We go to great lengths to have our volunteers looking injured and even encourage a bit of acting for the talented. I had to keep the smile off my face when one of them came off the ambulance crying out. “Where’s my baby, bring me my baby!” An Emmy winning daytime performance.
I went to work yesterday and realized the drill was today. I also remembered that my niece’s bf was in town this week and I called to see if he wanted to participate. He is a charming young man, in his last year of nursing school. So, I swung by a little after six am and picked him up and hoped they could use him. As luck would have it, a couple of volunteers did not make it.
Initially he was going to be a jet fuel induced asthma victim, but one of the moulage victims fell out and I used my minimal power to slide him in as a substitute. We headed to the make up room and were soon surrounded by twelve other victims, all part of the OB ward. Beach balls were being taped to abdomens, soot to faces and gashes glued to foreheads. I learned the technique of using tissue paper (the kind you use to wrap your gifts) and vasoline applied to skin. It looks like pealing burnt skin, especially after you add black and gray makeup to give it even more reality. My favorite was the nurse victim with a piece of glass jutting out of her chest. She was so disappointed when they declared her dead. The gray, white makeup was used for the morgue victims. There was even blood along legs as the pregnant gave birth to beach balls.
John managed to be a hospital worker who rushed in to help pull victims from the fire-balled hallway and both hands were tissued, vasolined and blackened. Add the sooty face and we were off. Somehow I doubt he felt jealous of the others that were evacuated down stairwells in a paraslyde. Not my cup of tea, but it works.
I spent my time on the loading dock to evaluate triage, at least until the decontamination tents went up. As you can see we pushed the system, the staff and hospital and all in less than three hours. Everyone did their jobs and it went well. The police, ambulance services and fire department all participated to make it as real as possible.
When I thought to write about this, I considered it an amusing piece and there was humor along the way. I fuss about how it’s always the emergency department that gets stressed, but this time we hit the OB floor with a helicopter and we learned some new things about how to respond to something that would be horrific if it happened in real life. The way our world has been jumbled by nature and man anything can happen and most likely will. Aren’t you glad we keep trying to prepare for it.
Rhianna
