Disaster drill in Madras, Oregon

Training is an important part in disasters as it is such a traumatic experience that if you have not practiced things get out of hand in a hurry. History has shown that the more you practice the more you revert to that practice when your mind becomes horrified.  That is the reason the EMS crews practice at least once a week.

To have a big drill that involves everyone takes a lot of time and money and personnel many of which are volunteers that take time off their regular jobs.

Jefferson County recently had a drill involving an airplane hitting the jail full of inmates and involved all the emergency personnel in the region and the hospital also took part.  Even our local prison took part by transporting live prisoners (actors) to their facility etc.

The Crook County High School students came over and were the victims. some of these kids wanted to go into medicine and felt this was really good for them too. They put makeup on the students where they looked real and they also had a card telling what was wrong with them.  Here shows some firefighters and EMS checking to see who needed to be transported in the ambulance first.

The orange shirts are prisoner shirts and shows patients everywhere so they are not only trying to treat the injured but keep prisoners from escaping.

An area was set up where people could be brought to be treated and await their turn to be transported to area hospitals via ambulance or Air Link helicopter.

A couple of low risk prisoners escaped but they will be surprised when they find out they did not get to stay gone long as a warrant was issued and now they have even more charges on them. The injured were more important at this point. A life is worth more then a escaped low risk prisoner escapes.

Two firefighters packing out the last of the patients to the ambulance.

I would like to thank everyone who took part in this drill to make our county a safer place for all. They learned a lot that they would do different if it was real. The point of a drill is not to do everything right but to see what works and what doesn't. Thinking something will work does not always work in the real practice so policies have changed and training will take place and then another drill maybe next year or who knows maybe even this winter where you add cold to the factor.

Good job everyone.