Monday, April 16, 2007
Region’s disaster triage plan functioned well, officials say
The emergency medical services’ program is tested weekly, with full-scale drills conducted twice a year.
Jared Soares | The Roanoke Times
Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital staff take a victim to the emergency room. Five hospitals, the state Department of Health and other agencies used the WebEOC system to evaluate the situation Monday.
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A regional plan established for natural disasters and terrorist attacks helped rescue and hospital personnel respond to Monday’s shootings.
The plans, designed for large-scale disasters with mass casualties, seemed to work well when applied to the smaller-scale Virginia Tech shootings, said Morris Reece, regional hospital preparedness coordinator for the Near Southwest Preparedness Alliance.
“We didn’t identify any technical issues. We were able to communicate to the people we talked to,” Reece said. “Of course there’s always opportunity for improvement and tweaking we need to do with it.”
Reece had just arrived at work Monday morning when he received word there had been a “major incident” at Virginia Tech. He and three other staff members at the Western Virginia EMS Council offices set up a regional hospital coordinating center designed to keep various hospitals in touch with one another.
“In that center we have all the facilities we need to assist the hospitals — radio communications with all EMS [emergency medical services] in the area, Internet, satellite — those kind of things,” Reece said.
Reece and the five hospitals involved — Montgomery Regional Hospital, Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, Carilion New River Valley Medical Center, Lewis-Gale Medical Center and Pulaski Community Hospital — each logged on to a software program called WebEOC (Emergency Operations Center).
Most recently, it’s been used to handle responses to a norovirus outbreak among Radford University students in January, the bloody aftermath of William Morva’s escape from a Blacksburg hospital in August and a mass carbon monoxide poisoning at Roanoke College in July. The program is tested weekly, with full-scale drills conducted twice a year.
As the hospitals logged on, first responders treated the numerous victims, likely using a triage algorithm designed to allow responders to quickly assess a victim’s condition, according to state officials.
A normal assessment can take 15 to 20 minutes, but the triage technique requires only 30 seconds, during which a technician evaluates and categorizes each victim according to severity of injuries.
“It’s 'Do the greatest good for the greatest number,’ ” said Karen Owens, assistant manager of operations for the Virginia Office of Emergency Medical Services.
The technique focuses on breathing, pulses in the extremities and one’s mental state, Owens said.
Once victims have been categorized, responders conduct a more thorough evaluation and then decide whether each victim requires hospitalization.
Reece and the others in the center monitored that, as well as other developments, such as the inability of Lifeguard 10 helicopters to transport victims because of high winds.
At one point Monday, the Virginia Department of Health also logged on the WebEOC system and, realizing the local morgue was too small, contacted the medical examiner’s office to secure more space.
By afternoon, the wave of victims arriving at the hospitals in Blacksburg, near Radford, in Salem and in Roanoke had slowed . Pulaski Community, though on standby, never received any victims. Reflecting on the day, Carilion spokesman Eric Earnhart said local hospitals had been tested but ultimately were prepared.
“You anticipate the possibility any time you live where we do, where there are major interstates and airports,” Earnhart said. “You’ve got to be prepared for patients.”
