Community emergency drill tests hospital's emergency preparedness
Drama students staged as sick patients for drill

Jana Bateman (left) , RN, BSN, emergency management coordinator, Monie Johnson, RN, director of ambulatory care, and Patricia Garner, RN, director of inpatient care at ETMC Jacksonville consult with each other about patient needs during a recent emergency preparedness drill at the hospital.

JACKSONVILLE - By 9:05 a.m. Thursday, the evacuation was underway.

Just minutes earlier, ETMC Jacksonville staff had received the call from city officials informing them that a tanker car located near the railroad overpass downtown was building pressure and could explode at any time.

The dangerous situation called for fast action - the evacuation of a one-mile radius around the tanker car, which was filled with ethylene oxide, a chemical which is highly reactive and flammable.

ETMC Jacksonville fell within the one-mile radius and drastic action was needed: all hospital patients and employees had to leave.

This time, fortunately, the danger wasn't real. It was part of a community-wide disaster preparedness drill sponsored by the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) of Cherokee County.

"The CERT Response Team came together after the Space Shuttle explosion. That situation helped us to realize that we needed greater communication and coordination among all the emergency responders in Cherokee County," explained Jana Bateman, RN, BSN, emergency management coordinator at ETMC Jacksonville. "After that incident, ETMC Jacksonville formed a group of first responders to come together as a group to communicate and better work together to respond to community emergencies."

Members of the CERT of Cherokee County include but are not limited to the Jacksonville Police Department, Jacksonville Fire Department, Texas Department of Public Safety, ETMC, Trinity Mother Frances, Cherokee County Sheriff 's Department, Cherokee County Health Department, Cherokee County Emergency Management Coordinator, Jacksonville ISD, Jacksonville Baptist College, Lon Morris College, the American Red Cross, HOPE and local HAM radio operators.

Thursday's drill was the third the CERT has coordinated with TRANSCAER, the Transportation Community Awareness Emergency Response. TRANSCAER is a voluntary national outreach effort that focuses on assisting communities prepare for and respond to possible hazardous material transportation incidents. Representatives from Shell, Union Pacific Railroad, Lyondell and Eagle Construction & Environmental Services were on hand to provide assistance as part of TRANSCAER's involvement in the drill.

Evacuation takes 1 hour, 40 minutes

Evacuating a home or business can be difficult enough. For a hospital the size of ETMC Jacksonville, it is an extremely complex undertaking. Every patient's health status and needs must be taken into account to arrange for transfers to other facilities that are able to care for them.

Staff reacted within minutes of receiving the evacuation call, setting up an emergency command center, informing visitors to the facility of the drill's evacuation orders and obtaining a list of patients that day to determine who could be discharged to return home and who would need to be transferred to facilities outside the evacuation zone.

Lon Morris College drama students were cast as mock patients for the drill, acting out a range of symptoms. UT Tyler nursing students were also involved in the exercise, following leadership in different areas of the hospital and taking notes.

By 10:08 a.m. ETMC Jacksonville's drill had allowed for transferring seven medical/ surgical patients, three ICU patients, and two emergency department patients to other facilities.

An additional four mock med-surg patients and four mothers with their newborn babies were sent home.

Staff were allowing for the wait time required to receive two Air 1 helicopters to transport two women in labor to ETMC Tyler.

After all patients were evacuated, time was allowed for all remaining employees to evacuate the premises. Total evacuation time was approximately one hour and 40 minutes.

The reward for conducting the drill was the realization of areas that could be improved.

"I was amazed by how fast and how many people EMS could carry, and how fast ETMC First Comm could find beds for these patients needing transfers. We had a planned holding area at ETMC Rusk, but beds in other areas were made available so fast we didn't have to use the holding area," Bateman said.

On the flip side, the hospital experienced some communications confusion during the drill. "We've already been discussing our ideas and begun to come up with solutions," she said. "These are good lessons learned and that's why we do it."