If all goes according to plan, disaster response should be standardized like CPR across the country — although hopefully not as prevalent.
Doctors, nurses and other first-responders took a step in that direction last Thursday when they attended a disaster response training program at the George Washington University's Ashburn campus. The three-day program, hosted by Response to Emergencies and Disasters Institute (READI), was not the only training program of its type in the national capitol region since the terrorist attacks in 2001. But it is the first to be certified by the American Medical Association as part of the Department of Homeland Security's efforts to make sure all first-responders "speak the same language," as one instructor said.
Three courses were offered: basic disaster life support, advanced disaster support and "train the trainer," where participants will take what they learn back to the hospitals where they work.
IN ONE EXERCISE, a dozen contorted mannequins and a few groaning volunteers awaited aid from the trainees on a sloping patch of grass by the parking lot. A young woman playing a member of the media was rebuffed by trainees even though she was a real member of the media, not a fake one. Everything was taken seriously.
"The key is to evaluate as many people as quickly as possible," said Dr. John Williams, provost and vice president for Health Affairs for GW. Victims were classified with colors: red (acute), yellow (moderately acute), green (walking wounded) and black (dead).
But as one participant put it, in the case of a major incident, "They're either walking wounded or they're dead."
Mark Flake, director of Nursing as well as director of Clinical Operations for Emergency Services at the Medical College of Georgia, was on hand to teach emergency decontamination. He cited the serin gas attack on Tokyo's subway in 1995, when health care workers unknowingly infected themselves.
"It's very easy for you to get off-the-shelf items to make nerve agents or weapons of mass destruction," Flake said after supervising a group of yellow HazMat-suited students cleansing a contaminated mannequin. "Health care workers need to know how to decontaminate before coming to the hospital."
JUST A FEW FEET AWAY, Loudoun County Fire and Rescue technician Travis Ludvigsen demonstrated a decontaminating tent that could treat from dozens to a couple hundred people an hour.
"It really depends on what they're doing," Ludvigsen said. With three separate shower stalls — one for getting naked, one for washing or blasting hot or cold air over the victim and one for re-clothing — the tent could be a turnstile for contamination victims. And with a set-up time of two-and-a-half to 10 minutes, the tent would be ready to go almost instantly.
Inside the READI office, a room with two sophisticated mannequins brimmed with students who were faced with numerous scenarios: a patient with Ebola, a building collapse, biological weapons. Because the patient's variety of symptoms might mask the most serious problem, participants had to stretch their thinking.
"We get them to think about the whole range of the disaster," said instructor Dr. Jeff Oregde.
THE PLAN IS to host a training program at GW several times a year, and then, if reviews are positive, take it on the road.
"So if people can't come to us," said READI Executive Director Jerry Hauer, "we can bring the course to them."