To spark a mock evaluation testing the county's disaster response, two fuel tanks and a fuel truck exploded Saturday at the Tri-County Career Center.
First responders in the county honed their skills by participating in a fake event where police went through the motions of reacting to shots being fired and two fuel tanks and a truck exploding.
Once the simulated disaster was announced, police immediately were dispatched to the career center in Nelsonville to investigate the call that shots were fired and cleared the area for other personnel, such as firefighters and paramedics.
Alyse Williams, a senior at Tri-County, organized the mock disaster as her senior project.
It was a full-scale disaster event
Williams said.
When first responders arrived at the scene, they heard fake gunfire and saw two fuel tanks on fire exercise director Jill Harris said.
One of the main focuses of the exercise was the fuel tanks Harris said.
An actual fuel fire would involve hundreds of first responders, which are emergency officials, such as police or firefighters, who can be the first on the scene, Harris said.
Every aspect of the mock disaster was acted out as if the situation was real. Because a real disaster of this proportion would require so much help, more than 100 first responders were involved in the event.
There were no real flames or water used at the event, but everyone went through the motions of putting out a fire of that magnitude.
The premise of the disaster was that a few assailants had taken over the school and were shooting people in and around it, said Jack Rhoades, Southeast Ohio Emergency Medical Service Operations Supervisor. In the event, 88 mock patients were injured, with conditions including gun shot wounds and exposure to chlorine gas, which the assailants had used to deter the first responders.
After securing the mock situation outside the school, teams moved through the school, encountering other deterrents, such as fake bombs From the EMS perspective
we did a good job
Rhoades said.
Rhoades also said the initial debriefing after the mock event was very positive overall, though detailed information about specific areas of competence is not available yet. Within the next few months, a report of the mock trial, compiled by the Ohio Emergency Management Agency, will be issued to each of the participants, citing what was done well and what could be improved.
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Chris Yonker
