Major emergency training held

Submitted

Gilchrist County hosted a major training exercise last weekend at the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in Bell. Personnel from Gilchrist County Fire and EMS, Fanning Springs Fire Department and Trenton Fire Department all joined to receive training on Mass Casualty Incident (MCI) and S.T.A.R.T. Training to better prepare them or an MCI.
MCI’s are classified as Level 1 (5-10 patients), Level 2 (11-20 patients), Level 3 (21-100 patients), Level 4 (101-1000 patients), and over 1000 patients as a Level 5. Last weekend’s drill was classified as a Level 3.

Rescue workers free a man from the vehicle and prepare for hospital transport.
Photo by: Julee Brideson.

MCI’s are very common and dealing with the management of a major incident can be overwhelming to first arriving units according to Chief Carlos Perez, Gilchrist County Fire Chief. “It’s vital that all personnel in Fire and EMS all know how to manage these types of incidents,” said Chief Perez.
Linda Walker, Gilchrist County EMS Chief, also added that it’s very important for all the EMTs and Paramedics to have S.T.A.R.T. Training. Chief Walker explained that S.T.A.R.T. is an acronym for Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment. “We can assess a patient in less that 20 seconds using this method,” said Chief Walker. It was developed in Long Beach, California for the Fire Rescue Department there.
Once the patients are triaged they are moved to a treatment area for better evaluation. Then, based on their injuries, transported to a medical facility. Over 30 volunteers, mostly children, were moulaged by staff and Stacy Galloway, Assistant Professor with the University of Florida’s Design School of Theatre and Dance. Gilchrist County sought the help of Julie Downey to teach the class. Mrs. Downey developed and implemented the MCI/S.T.A.R.T. system now adopted by the Florida Department of Health, and used throughout the 67 counties in the state. “We could not have found a better person to teach this two-day class,” aid Chief Perez.
The actual drill was held on Sunday morning. A vehicle donated by Don Martin was placed in front of a bus to simulate an accident. Four moulaged victims were placed in the car, according to Chief Walker, and the remainder were placed in the bus. It was the job of the first arriving Fire and EMS personnel to evaluate, sort and transport the victims. Over 40 personnel from all the county’s Fire/EMS departments were part of the training incident.
Both Chief Walker and Chief Perez were very pleased with the results. Ron McQueen, Gilchrist County Administrator and one of the evaluators, felt much more assured that our county personnel can handle an MCI incident very effectively.
“The personnel did a great job,” said Mr. McQueen. “We had a number of evaluators, including one from outside our system, that all agreed that not only was the training well received, but the drill was also carried out very efficiently and professionally. They did a good job and our county should be very proud. of all the volunteers and EMS personnel.”