Published: September 29, 2006 03:09 pm      

Mock disaster tests EMS skills

By Jim Goodson

editor@jacksonvilleprogress.com

One person pretended to be dead and 26 pretended to be injured at the site of a train derailment in downtown Jacksonville staged by hazardous materials emergency response teams fron throughout East Texas Thursday.

“This was one of the largest and most comprehensive mock disaster drills ever staged,” Shell Oil Co. executive Penny Charrance said as things got underway at 9:45 a.m.

The drill involved the derailment of a so-called “death train,” carrying Hexachlorocyclotentadiene, a nasty chemical that roars through Jacksonville every Sunday night, participants said.

Hexachlorocyclotentadiene is an extremely toxic chemical that is fatal if swallowed or inhaled. Although not flammable itself, it gives off toxic gases if it becomes involved in a fire. If mixed with water, its runoff is corrosive and can kill plants and wildlife.

Students from Lon Morris College played the role of victims tended to by hundreds of hazardous materials professionals from 16 different units, including the Jacksonville police and fire departments.

Both hospital emergency rooms took part in the event.

“We ‘treated’ 13 people,” Trinity Mother Francis spokesman John Moore said. “I can’t say enough about the our team responded. Michael Lewis did an outstanding job preparing everyone. Lewis is the commander of incident response at the hospital.

East Texas Medical Center-Jacksonville also played a major role in the event. ETMC’s Janna Bateman was coordinator of the overall event.

“She did a great job putting ths together,” Charrance said.

Charrance was one of several professionals that critiqued the EMS teams’ performance. Other were from Union Pacific Railroad, Chem-Tech, the Environmental Protection Agency and the federal Department of Homeland Security.

“There are always things to improve upon, but overall everything went very well,” Jacksonville Fire Department Captain Randy Ragsdale said. “The scope of this drill took in every possible contingency, so this was a good exercise for all of us.”