Decontamination drill held at Hudson Hospital

• Hospital staff donned HAZMAT suits to treat 'patients' during drill

Suiting up in HAZMAT suits, hospital staff prepared for treating multiple mock patients during the hospital’s emergency decontamination drill. The decontamination tent was set up in the hospital’s maintenance facility. Practicing proper decontamination skills are Katie Claus, Business Office, Beth Schroepfer, RN, and Claudia Achermann, CNA. Also pictured here is one of the 20 mock-patients, HASA swim team member Shane Blinkman. Submitted photo

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How does the hospital respond to a chemical explosion emergency?

This was the scenario enacted during a live emergency preparedness drill on Monday, June 18, at Hudson Hospital & Clinics. The drill was part of the hospital’s yearly mandatory emergency preparedness response to mass casualties.

It’s a time for staff to prepare, train and respond to a mass casualty situation — in this case, a decontamination scenario. Lots of activity in and around the Emergency Center and hospital’s maintenance garage captured the attention of staff as they were called to effectively respond to the situation using proper procedure and protocol.

The drill scenario involved a response to a mock-maintenance explosion at the Hudson Middle School pool resulting in chemical burns on a number of mock-patients. St. Croix EMS & Rescue, Hudson Hospital & Clinics emergency medical staff, and additional staff from various areas of the hospital participated in the drill. Also participating as mock patients and concerned parents were approximately 20 students and four parents from the Hudson Area Swim Association (HASA).

The objectives of this emergency drill included: testing local EMS capabilities of triaging and transferring multiple causalities; testing the hospital’s use of the Incident Command Center and ability to respond to multiple trauma patients; establish adequate communication between the Emergency Center, EMS and the decontamination site; identify the need for evacuation and establish an alternate care site as needed; and successfully initiate procedures for the decontamination of multiple contaminated patients utilizing the HAZMAT decontamination tent and appropriate procedures.

Three drill reviewers, Ray Morris, St. Croix County Emergency Management; Betsy Johnson, Westfields Hospital Emergency Management; and Susan Timm, Westfields Hospital Infection Preventionist, were onsite taking notes and offering helpful suggestions for the drill successes and areas of improvement at the post-drill evaluation.

“It is important to continue to train and drill on the care of patients in a mass casualty situation and learn about incidents that might push the hospital’s ability to respond,” said Philip Hughes, manager, Education & Development. “Complexity of patients, staffing and physical resources are some of the huge challenges when faced with incidents of any size.”

Additional emergency preparedness training sessions for staff are planned for this fall.

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