Pretend victims make mock crash realistic practice
A handful of teenagers wearing triage tags indicating minor injuries after Saturday’s mock airplane crash drill at Metro Airport said they preferred having minor rather than major fake injuries.
They didn’t get face paint representing the bloody, painful “wounds” that some of their Louisiana Youth Challenge comrades suffered in the disaster response drill that simulated a plane that crashed after its nose gear failed.
What a few of the traumatized walking wounded such as Jarius Watson, 16, got instead was a chance to act confused or downright hysterical, crying out “Where am I?” resisting help from EMS workers and firefighters or aimlessly walking away.
“They said, ‘You’re dazed, so act like you’re dazed,’ ” Watson said event organizers told him while preparing for the drill. “I’m supposed to walk around.”
The drill — a Federal Aviation Administration requirement for emergency responders to go through once every three years at Metro Airport — enacted from beginning to end every step of the automatic emergency response to a plane crash, airport spokesman Ronnie Pickard said.
Saturday’s scenario called for a simulated plane carrying 70 passengers to crash when its nose gear failed, causing fuel tanks to rupture and spill aviation fuel over the runway that caught fire, Pickard said. Coordinators tried to reenact every possible occurrence, including handling dazed passengers like Watson.
Watson and other “walkers” were asked to behave like some survivors of the July 1989 crash of a United Airlines flight on a Sioux City, Iowa, runway who were found wandering lost in cornfields hundreds of yards from the crash site.
“You have to deal with all these contingencies because you don’t know what will happen in a real crash,” Pickard said. “We tried to create most possibilities.”
The drill, which started about 9 a.m. on the departure end of a runway on the southwest side of the airfield, followed Metro Airport’s emergency plan.
n The Airport Rescue and Firefighting Department responded immediately at the beginning of the drill by battling flames coming from nearby fire pits. Airport spokesman Bill Profita said ARFF would concentrate in a real crash on fighting intense flames from aviation fuel and contain the fuel to prevent a flashback.
n Emergency responders from EMS and area fire departments — delayed momentarily by a man suffering from an actual heart attack who flagged down help — responded and set up a staging area near the crash, which was still classified as a “hot zone” while ARFF dealt with leaked fuel.
In an actual disaster, Baton Rouge Fire Department spokesman Barry Mounce said, tank trucks from Brownsfield, Central, Baker, District 6 and Alsen would respond with the Baton Rouge Fire Department as part of an automatic aid agreement.
In the drill, firetrucks approached the crash from upwind to avoid the imaginary fumes from the leaking fuel and directed passengers — all volunteers from Youth Challenge, a National Guard program for at-risk youth — who had exited the plane to a safe area away from the plane. Seriously injured passengers were carried away from the danger on stretchers.
n EMS paramedics had already begun setting up for a mass casualty incident and started triaging — assigning treatment priorities — for passengers based on their injuries.
Passengers were given triage tags classifying the extent of their injuries and directed into waiting areas, just as they would in an actual disaster, EMS spokesman Tom Harris said. EMS vehicles carried the “most seriously injured patients” to nearby hospitals while paramedics tended to others’ needs.
Volunteers from the Red Cross participated in the drill by being on hand to help passengers, including a “pregnant” women.
n Drill participants designated as “injured passengers” were taken with police escorts to four participating hospitals by EMS and Acadian Ambulance for “treatment.” Baton Rouge deputy constables provided security at the hospitals. The East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner’s Office removed the four mannequins from the airplane representing dead passengers.
Representatives from Delta Airlines dealt with drill participants acting the part of frustrated family members of passengers who demanded to see their loved ones or fainted upon hearing bad news.
Every detail was considered when organizing the drill, Pickard said. Airport officials wanted to create the most realistic scenario possible for emergency responders to practice in preparation for an actual disaster.
“It’s what we do,” said Sgt. Don Kelly of the Baton Rouge Police Department, which provided officers who helped secure the perimeter of the airport. “Prepare and hopefully never have to use it.”
