In Case of Emergency

A cry for help went out at 10:19 a.m. last Thursday.

"I am down at Trafton Park and I was walking along and heard yelling and screaming," the panicked caller said into her cell phone. "I ran over to the bleachers and the bleachers collapsed and there are four kids under them and they need help."

Minutes later paramedics, firefighters and hospital staff across Phillips County were alerted of the disaster and sirens echoed across the city of Malta.

Thankfully, the panicked caller was Phillips County Ambulance's Gina Lamb and her frantic call and the disaster she reported was pretend. The call set Phillips County Hospital and Family Clinics version of the Great American ShakeOut in motion - the Shakeout happens annually on October 19 to promote earthquake readiness - and at the Phillips County Hospital, staff used the day as a disaster drill.

Shortly after sirens sounded, two Malta City Volunteer Firefighters (Chief Greg Boos and Casey Knudsen) arrived on the scene and found four children (Rylan Ohl, Gabrielle Rich, Giona Lamb and Gabby Giblette) beneath the "collapsed" bleachers, each with an injury or two (some with fake blood and all with ghoulish face makeup applied by Malta's Heather Jenkins.)

The firefighters assessed the injured while two ambulances arrived at the scene. Soon, the four children were all taken by ambulance to the hospital where nurses and doctors assisted the EMT's with the children and took them to the emergency room. Prior to the drill's beginning, Sherry Gairrett, FNP-BC and Phillips County Hospital's Trauma Medical Director, explained that the day's disaster drill was run in order to "tax our resources," she said, "to facilitate the most effective and appropriate care necessary for the members of our community if we did indeed have a true disaster."

The staff at the hospital treated the incident like a real disaster and doctors and nurses treated the victims as they were brought to the ER. Each of the children played their parts precisely (they each practiced their ailments at Trafton Park prior to the drill beginning) and kept up the acts all through the exercise - Ohl moaning and rocking back and forth for the better part of 30 minutes due to a head injury and Giblette spraying fake blood at anyone in within shooting distance.

Once the drill was completed, hospital staff and members of EMS held a debriefing to discuss how the exercise went, what went well, and what needed to be worked on.

"We identified a few things that we need to decide on how to handle in the future," Gairrett said. "Those things didn't have an impact on the care provided, but they could have so we identified a few things that we need to work on and that's why we do the drills; so that we can be better prepared."

Gairrett said she was pleased with all the different EMS staff that partook in the drill and the event was great practice for everyone involved. She said the scope of the drill was purposely large in order to tax the staff as much as possible.

"It required all four providers being there, calling in all of our staff, calling in everybody from the different departments so that we could start assigning roles to people and getting that patient-care done in the most effective and efficient manner so that we are providing the best care possible and getting them to bigger facilities if that is what needs to happen," she said.

Gairrett said that the hospital is looking to hold these types of drills at least two times a year going forward. She said that perhaps the next drill will be held on a weekend so more people can participate and perhaps involve a mock, multi-car accident so the fire department can get practice using the Jaws of Life to extricate victims.

"I think overall everyone felt we did pretty well," Gairrett said of Thursday's drill. "There are little things we need to think about and do differently next time, but that was what this drill was for. It was a learning process and I think everyone did great."