West,TX Explosion/MCI

[Bullets]

Thanks. The 20th anniversary of the Branch Davidian thing is tomorrow. Very coincidental, even for this week in April.

Considering this particular weeks history, bad things happening is hardly coincidence

 

[JDub]

I arrived on-scene about 30 minutes after the explosion. When I got there I attempted to get to the nursing home that was almost completely destroyed. I ended up stopping at an ambulance getting overwhelmed and assisted them in triaging patients. Shortly afterwards we evacuated everyone back to the high school football field (you have probably seen the pictures from here). We managed to get all of our red and yellow patients transported and a majority of our green patients. Around this time we lost most of our air assets due to weather. Then we were ordered to evacuate about another mile south to the community center and setup like a makeshift hospital there. We ended up using school buses to transport the walking wounded and organized all of our ambulances. We expected another wave of patients but they never really came. We were gearing up to conduct search and rescue, but we were told to stand down because they were concerned about more explosions and downed power lines.

In the end we know that a 50 unit apartment complex was reduced to just a skeleton. The nursing home was almost completely destroyed. West EMS' station was severely damaged. The AirEvac base was severely damaged and the helicopter was taken out of service. The West intermediate school was almost completely destroyed. Finally several homes were leveled and almost half of the town suffered broken windows and minor damage.

Before the explosion 6 volunteer firefighters responded and are all currently missing and presumed dead. One West EMS member responded with an ambulance and several EMT students inside. They died inside the blast also. I am not aware of any rescuers that died after the initial explosion.

Currently the news is stating 15 dead and 160+ injured. I know that we triaged many more than that. Plus many people took themselves POV to the hopsital. The ATF locked down the scene and so the body recovery process was held up for much of today.

I honestly felt like I was in a movie. I have never experienced anything like this in my life. Ultimately I think everyone did a pretty good job considering how much chaos there was. This is a small town and it is gonna take a while to recover from, but I am glad that there were no more explosions or complications with toxic fumes.

 

[chaz90]

Sounds like everyone involved performed admirably. So sorry to hear about the horrible losses incurred by such a tight knit community, but I'm glad it was at least mitigated by the heroic efforts all responders put forward.

 

[Bullets]

Seems like a lot of agencies responded to help, were these all dispatched, or did people just start self-dispatching and showing up?

Who provides normal EMS to West? Private, Municipal, Fire?

Seems like you guys did pretty damn well considering the weather was getting bad and the nature of the incident. Once again EMS shined this week, and this was truly catching you by surprise.


Saw that Texas sent 4 MABs to the incident, how did they work out and how much time did you spend with them? Im the chief engineer for one stationed in NJ so im always interested in how well they are utilized in incidents in other states

 

[WTEngel]

I arrived on-scene about 30 minutes after the explosion. When I got there I attempted to get to the nursing home that was almost completely destroyed. I ended up stopping at an ambulance getting overwhelmed and assisted them in triaging patients. Shortly afterwards we evacuated everyone back to the high school football field (you have probably seen the pictures from here). We managed to get all of our red and yellow patients transported and a majority of our green patients. Around this time we lost most of our air assets due to weather. Then we were ordered to evacuate about another mile south to the community center and setup like a makeshift hospital there. We ended up using school buses to transport the walking wounded and organized all of our ambulances. We expected another wave of patients but they never really came. We were gearing up to conduct search and rescue, but we were told to stand down because they were concerned about more explosions and downed power lines.

In the end we know that a 50 unit apartment complex was reduced to just a skeleton. The nursing home was almost completely destroyed. West EMS' station was severely damaged. The AirEvac base was severely damaged and the helicopter was taken out of service. The West intermediate school was almost completely destroyed. Finally several homes were leveled and almost half of the town suffered broken windows and minor damage.

Before the explosion 6 volunteer firefighters responded and are all currently missing and presumed dead. One West EMS member responded with an ambulance and several EMT students inside. They died inside the blast also. I am not aware of any rescuers that died after the initial explosion.

Currently the news is stating 15 dead and 160+ injured. I know that we triaged many more than that. Plus many people took themselves POV to the hopsital. The ATF locked down the scene and so the body recovery process was held up for much of today.

I honestly felt like I was in a movie. I have never experienced anything like this in my life. Ultimately I think everyone did a pretty good job considering how much chaos there was. This is a small town and it is gonna take a while to recover from, but I am glad that there were no more explosions or complications with toxic fumes.

Thanks for the information. It sounds pretty much in line with what we were speculating. Absolutely unbelievable...

Get some rest brother, and stay safe.

 

[JDub]

Seems like a lot of agencies responded to help, were these all dispatched, or did people just start self-dispatching and showing up?

Who provides normal EMS to West? Private, Municipal, Fire?

Seems like you guys did pretty damn well considering the weather was getting bad and the nature of the incident. Once again EMS shined this week, and this was truly catching you by surprise.


Saw that Texas sent 4 MABs to the incident, how did they work out and how much time did you spend with them? Im the chief engineer for one stationed in NJ so im always interested in how well they are utilized in incidents in other states

I personally self-dispatched because I knew a lot of people there and realized they were gonna need help. Shortly after I left I heard over the radio an all hands mayday page. I believe close to every Fire/Rescue outfit in about a 3 hour radius got paged. People were coming from even as far away as Dallas FD, ATCEMS, Frisco FD and probably a lot of others.

West EMS is a volunteer service that normally handles the city. They have a lot of willing volunteers, but only 3 ambulances. ETMC handles the rest of the county.

I personally did not see any of the MABs. I left around 0230 in the morning because at that points we were almost completely out of the patients and the MABs had not arrived yet. So I am not quite sure if they did anything at all.

 

[Aidey]

Seems like a lot of agencies responded to help, were these all dispatched, or did people just start self-dispatching and showing up?

Who provides normal EMS to West? Private, Municipal, Fire?

Per Dr. Bledsoe's FB people were self dispatching. He posted a plea for people to stop because it was hampering efforts. I watched an interview with the West medical director. He said West has a volunteer department and that they had 3 ambulances.

 

[shfd739]

Before the explosion 6 volunteer firefighters responded and are all currently missing and presumed dead. One West EMS member responded with an ambulance and several EMT students inside. They died inside the blast also. I am not aware of any rescuers that died after the initial explosion.

This part just got me..and hard. Students. Not even certed and out practicing on their own. And probably from the local area and small towns and wanting to give back and do something with a little meaning to it.

And they did.

Godspeed to all of them. Thoughts and prayers to all involved.

If you need anything let us know. The community is here for you.

 

[lightsandsirens5]

Thoughts and prayers will continue to be sent in the direction of West.

It was somewhat maddening to be sitting in my ambulance in the Longview area, listening to everything happen, and not bring able to do anything. Especially hearing calls on the radio over and over for the down firefighters. And not being able to do anything. Interestingly enough, I was listening McClennan County on the scanner already.

As I'm a volunteer firefighter myself, it hit close to home, being another volunteer department, and also being in the general area of the country where I live.

 

[RocketMedic]

This part just got me..and hard. Students. Not even certed and out practicing on their own. And probably from the local area and small towns and wanting to give back and do something with a little meaning to it.

And they did.

Godspeed to all of them. Thoughts and prayers to all involved.

If you need anything let us know. The community is here for you.

Damn. Kids, probably.
This is a bad week.

 

[Household6]

This part just got me..and hard. Students. Not even certed and out practicing on their own. And probably from the local area and small towns and wanting to give back and do something with a little meaning to it.

And they did.

Godspeed to all of them. Thoughts and prayers to all involved.

If you need anything let us know. The community is here for you.

That tweaks my heart strings too. I know it's sometimes a reality, but your first call shouldn't have to be a MCI. I'm the oldest student by far in my classes, some of my classmates are just kids --19, 20 years old, not even old enough to buy a beer..

And those volunteer FFers.. No pay, no benefits, not even funeral bennies in some cases. Makes my heart sad to think of their families having to plan funerals for them.

 

[xrsm002]

West Volunteer Ambulance was my very first EMS agency to volunteer at, luckily I didn't know anyone that was killed, I do know one of their brothers though he was my FTO.

 

[xrsm002]

That tweaks my heart strings too. I know it's sometimes a reality, but your first call shouldn't have to be a MCI. I'm the oldest student by far in my classes, some of my classmates are just kids --19, 20 years old, not even old enough to buy a beer..

And those volunteer FFers.. No pay, no benefits, not even funeral bennies in some cases. Makes my heart sad to think of their families having to plan funerals for them.

Actually in Texas they are trying to get death benefits for volunteers in Texas

 

[RocketMedic]

http://news.yahoo.com/special-report-poor-planning-left-texas-firefighters-unprepared-011904830.html

Called it. Ricky Rescue volunteers tunnel-visioned on the fire to "protect their community" and "we don't need that fancy paper learnin'", tried to rely on"years of experience" to cover up training deficits, and then take credit for not managing to totally kill off the department and town. Notice how the plant foreman himself tunnel-visioned in, while the pro FF tried to gain intel.

This is why volunteer fire and EMS need to go.

 

[shfd739]

http://news.yahoo.com/special-report-poor-planning-left-texas-firefighters-unprepared-011904830.html

Called it.

The "Itll never happen to us" mentality. They just became a "Have" and hopefully their hard lesson is learned by others.

My old FD had a fertilizer distribution business in our district. It was very much preplanned and we all knew if something happened there the orders were to set up supply line, aim the master streams and sit back and watch. From a safe distance.

 

[Wheel]

The "Itll never happen to us" mentality. They just became a "Have" and hopefully their hard lesson is learned by others.

My old FD had a fertilizer distribution business in our district. It was very much preplanned and we all knew if something happened there the orders were to set up supply line, aim the master streams and sit back and watch. From a safe distance.

It's sad that deaths could have been prevented by some planning. Hopefully small departments will learn this lesson so they don't have to learn it the hard way.

 

[shfd739]

It's sad that deaths could have been prevented by some planning. Hopefully small departments will learn this lesson so they don't have to learn it the hard way.

Thats my hope. A little bit of planning will pay dividends later and these deaths will not be for nothing.

 

[RocketMedic]

It's sad that deaths could have been prevented by some planning. Hopefully small departments will learn this lesson so they don't have to learn it the hard way.

Or criticism of the response will be viewed as personal attacks on volunteers, "volunteers are the backbone of America", "BLS before ALS" and "EMTs save Paramedics" and "we can't afford big-city training, we do our best" and the improvements are ignored.

 

[Wheel]

Or criticism of the response will be viewed as personal attacks on volunteers, "volunteers are the backbone of America", "BLS before ALS" and "EMTs save Paramedics" and "we can't afford big-city training, we do our best" and the improvements are ignored.

True, but someone, somewhere, made a mistake here. I doubt it was individual volunteers, but this needs to be examined so that improvements can be made.

 

[EMDispatch]

Or criticism of the response will be viewed as personal attacks on volunteers, "volunteers are the backbone of America", "BLS ALS" and "EMTs save Paramedics" and "we can't afford big-city training, we do our best" and the improvements are ignored.

Unfortunately, that's how it will go down... Even them big cities make huge mistakes that cost too many lives. NIOSH will release their report, it will be filed away and forgotten about by 90% of the public safety community. It's hard for the community and public at large to distinguish critical review from an attack