The Emergency Preparedness Drill at Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka helps prepare the hospital for an active shooter situation.
The hospital collaborated with Humboldt Bay fire, Eureka Police Department, and City Ambulance to help set up the drill.
“It’s very important for us. You know, we do drills and simulations in the walls of the hospital all the time,” Providence Humboldt interim chief executive Rayjit Hundal said. “What’s different today is that we are doing it on a bigger scale. If there was an event in the community, how would we all respond because it takes a team right? A team within the hospital and outside of the hospital.”
That team aspect comes to fruition when dealing with a potential mass casualty event. Hospital staff took on roles from incident commander and trauma leaders to emphasize the importance of collaboration.
They set up a conference room as a fake classroom where Fortuna High School students played the role of shooting victims. EMTs and firefighters carried the victims out to assess injuries and send some to the emergency room for treatment.
With the drill, St. Joe’s hopes that emergency staff is ready in case of such an event.
“there’s lots of things – lots of moving parts in a big incident like this, mainly how to decompress an ER while still caring for people that are coming in with medical issues,” trauma program manager Brandon Kilth said. “So we want to make sure we can care for patients and for those coming in from that MCI [mass casualty incident] or traumatic event.”
This also tests their response for things like the deputy-involved shooting in Eureka back in April of this year.
“We had upwards of nine critical patients that we took within thirty minutes. And we managed that seamlessly smooth. So from that live drill, we were hopeful coming into this it would run very similar,” Kilth said
That quick response and timing is key in these critical moments.
“Most of what we do in the health care is time sensitive, especially in the emergency department, is time sensitive,” Hundal said. “The goal of the drill is for everybody to know what they’re doing, what they’re meant to be doing, and what their role is in the team, so to be in a constant state of readiness, drilling and preparing is important.”
