Article and Photos by Chuck Seaver
The Central Florida Disaster Medical Coalition (CFDMC) conducted a region-wide mass casualty community preparedness exercise on Thursday, April 20th.
The exercise was based on a mock disaster that included a large scale, hazardous chemical incident that required the emergency capabilities of fifty-nine hospitals throughout central Florida. The exercise took place at hospitals in Brevard, Indian River, Lake, Martin, Orange, Osceola, Seminole, St. Lucie and Volusia Counties and included more than 2,000 student volunteers acting as victims, along with hundreds of volunteers supporting the exercise. Students wore makeup to simulate injuries and had triage tags assigned simulating how they would arrive at local hospital emergency departments for treatment. Local ambulance services and fire rescue departments were tasked with transport and decontamination needs.
The goal of the exercise is to prepare local hospitals, medical professionals, emergency response personnel, and law enforcement to respond to a catastrophic incident should it take place in Central Florida.
South Lake County area hospitals, including all three Orlando Health-South Lake Hospital campuses participated in the training as well as AdventHealth Waterman and UF Health-Leesburg in central Lake County. Local law enforcement agencies throughout the county participated as well as authorities from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security.
Gary Schindele, a CFDMC member, served as the controller and evaluator for the Orlando Health-South Lake Hospital, Four-Corner’s campus. Schindele, who coordinated the volunteer participation of the Clermont Battalion Sea Cadet Corps, as well as student volunteers from South Lake and Lake Minneola High School’s, attended the training exercise debrief session held at Orlando Regional Medical Center. “There are always lessons to learn from these types of events, and we know that the more we drill, the better we get. And we pray that we will never be tested to the full extent of what we did today” says Schindele.
Schindele reminds the community that not all mass casualty incidents are of this magnitude, but the public should know that our local first responders and healthcare providers are prepared to respond at any level, at any time. “Although this type of exercise is the largest exercise of its kind in the United States, it only takes one school bus traffic crash to trigger a mass casualty response by local healthcare facilities and first responders” says Schindele.
The CFDMC is a not-for-profit organization operating with a vision to create and sustain a resilient community with a common purpose and voice, while protecting and saving lives during disasters of all types and sizes.
Visit www.centralfladisaster.org to learn more about the Central Florida Disaster Medical Coalition.
