# MCI Drill



## cbdemt (Sep 19, 2004)

Our local EMS association just had its annual mass casualty drill.  It was a mock plane crash held at our local airport.  It was my first and I must say I’m really disappointed and shocked at how poorly it went.  

Where to start…  First of all the people filling the various positions such as Triage Officer, Transportation Officer, Safety Officer, and even Incident Commander were a joke!  If it weren’t for their vests, you would not have known them from the rest of us confused folks.  

They “dispatched” the resources from the staging area as they actually would be in a real incident.  Those departments closest to the airport were sent in first.  It’s my understanding that in an MCI the first units responding assume the command and begin Triage etc.  After an initial assessment including at least an estimate of the # of patients and starting triage, additional resources are sent as needed for treatment and transport.  This was not the case in our drill.  

Our ambulance was dispatched from the staging area 4th or 5th.  Once on scene we were met with complete chaos.  We were given no specific direction on where to go on scene.  We pulled up to the first group of patients we came too.  When we made patient contact, we found some were tagged incorrectly, and others not at all.  Whoever triaged this group tagged the critical (red) and dead (black).  That’s a pretty big oops!  If this were a real MCI the patients wouldn’t have a paper on their chest saying they had a pulse and were breathing.  

A medic came up to us and told us to load his patient on to our rig.  We did.  After she was loaded we looked at her vitals page.  PULSLESS BREATHLESS LIFELESS.  We unloaded her and threw two more onboard.  It was then that we first saw the transportation officer who was good enough to tell us which hospital we would be transporting to.  

After returning from our trip to the hospital, we were sent back out to the field.  By this time (about an hour and 45 minutes after the drill had started), SOME of the pts had been put into triage groups.  There were still many critical and walking pts scattered about the field.  

The MCI equipment vehicle (which we were told had everything we would need)  was short some very crucial equipment including straps or at least tape for the backboards.  

I hope someone voiced their concerns at the debriefing.  We unfortunately couldn’t, as we were toned out for a structure fire in our district just as it was starting. 

There was more… but I think that’s enough for now… 

And now I’ll end my rant.  That was a long one, thanks for sticking with me till the end if you could make it!


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## rescuecpt (Sep 19, 2004)

What I suggest is to look up some MCI procedures from other departments and practice with your own department divided into teams acting as different departments.  Run it by the book the first time, even if everyone has to carry around a manual to do things right.  In a couple weeks, do it again without the books, then add in your neighboring departments and give them copies of the same manuals you used.  Also get your County or State training officer involved if necessary - they should be well versed in the local procedures and should be helpful (however, if they were involved in the other drill and were partially responsible for it not going well, you might consider letting them observe, but not run, one of the later drills when you have things pretty well down.)


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