Mass Casualty Incident or Hysteria

Emergency site managers: be attentive to how messages are worded.

The following article was published on July 29 in several media outlets.


34 hospitalized after co-worker sprays perfume
By The Associated Press

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — At first, fire officials suspected that carbon monoxide or some other toxic fumes had sickened almost 150 people at a Texas bank call center.
It turned out that perfume was to blame.

MedStar ambulance spokeswoman Lara Kohl says 34 people were taken to hospitals, 12 by ambulance, after reporting dizziness and shortness of breath Wednesday at a Bank of America call center in Fort Worth. An additional 110 were treated at the scene.

Fort Worth fire Lt. Kent Worley says the incident started with two people complaining about dizziness after a co-worker sprayed perfume. Others reported being sick when an announcement was made that anyone with similar symptoms should exit the building.
Investigators do not know what type of perfume was sprayed.

Business Excellence Award nomination

We are very excited to have been nominated for the Business Excellence Award - Service Sector from the Barrie Chamber of Commerce. The phone call today was very exciting and is being followed up with interview on Friday where we will learn more information, hopefully including who nominated Emergency Management & Training as we would like to thank them.

It is an honor just to be nominated as it places us in a group of highly admired organizations.

We thank all our our clients and corporate friends for being such great supporters.

Did You Know?

We all know the world is changing and that rate of change is getting faster.

My grandfather told me a story about seeing change in his life. When he was a child, he and other boys would go down to the barber shop to listen to stories from the barber. One that particularly caught his interest was the barber telling them that one day they would have a box in every house where they could listen live to the Macy's parade in New York City. The radio was coming.

My grandfather lived through a time of great discovery: the household radio, manufacturing of automobiles, television, the Wright brothers' flight, the sound barrier broken and man landing on the moon.

Change was coming rapidly.

Now we live in a constant state of change. The attached link is to video by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Brenman puts a perspective on the current state of change.

In the end we must ask "What Does It All Mean?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIDLIwlzkgY

"Swine flu: How scared should we be?"

Attached is a link to a very interesting article from the Toronto Star on July 25, 2009 regarding the threat of the current H1N1 strain. An interesting read balancing out what we typically see from the media regarding H1N1.

http://www.healthzone.ca/health/article/671620

Trillium Response - Part 2

Trillium Response

One of Emergency Management & Training's specialties is planning, coordinating and implementing mock disasters, often involving several hundred participants.

EMT was one of the major behind the scenes players for Trillium Response, an exercise lead by Emergency Management Ontario and the Department of National Defence. It involved dozens of municipal, provincial and federal agencies, NGOs and otehr organizations.

EMT coordinated the EMAT (Emergency Medical Assistance Team) portion of the exercise working with numerous agencies to coordinate the deployment, recruiting 16 physicians to works as Patient Information Providers and more than 200 volunteers to play the role of patients over the 2 day exercise. EMT created the scenarios to challenge the EMAT team leaders and the patient scenarios.

Dr. Martin Cann attended on behalf of EMT to photograph Trillium Response. We have had numerous requests to post photos so the next few posts will be a small sampling of the hundreds of photos taken during the exercise.

Guide to Disaster Planning for Animals

The American Veterinary Medical Association has released their Emergency Preparedness and Response Guide. This comprehensive 423 page document covers a full range of topics from being prepared to deal with pets to livestock to zoo animals.

While the document is focused on the USA there is valuable planning material applicable to both Veterinaries and emergency planners world wide.

The manual includes everything from daily water and feed requirements for farm animals to emergency treatments for health issues, behavioural concerns with animals under stress, and lessons learned from various disasters.

The document is available online at:

http://www.avma.org/disaster/emerg_prep_resp_guide.pdf

Owners Charged In Retirement Home Fire

Following an investigation by the Ontario Fire Marshal’s office of a fatal fire (January 19, 2009), the Orillia Fire Department has laid 7 charges against the owners of the Muskoka Heights Retirement residence.

These charges include:

· Failure to ensure exterior passageway or fire escape in occupied building be maintained;

· Failure to ensure supervisory staff be instructed in the fire emergency procedures as described in the fire safety plan before given any responsibility for fire safety;

· Failure to implement the fire safety plan provisions for conducting the required monthly tests of the building’s fire alarm system;

· Failure to prominently post and maintain on each floor area at least one copy of the fire emergency procedures;

· Failure to implement the fire safety plan provisions for conducting fire drills for supervisory staff;

· Failure to conduct annual maintenance and testing of portable extinguishers;

· Failure to ensure original or a copy of records be retained at the building premises;

If convicted, the owners can be fined up to $50,000 and sentenced to 1 year in jail on each of the charges.

Despite heroic rescue attempts by firefighters, two residents perished during the fire and two others later succumbed from their injuries at hospital.

These charges underscore the importance of due diligence in ensuring a proper emergency plan, training, and documentation.

The press release from the Fire Marshal’s office can be found at:

http://www.ofm.gov.on.ca/english/Publications/Press/2009/July-20-09.asp

Bus Roll Over Injures Children - Brings Parents to the Scene

It was a parent's worst nightmare. Some, while waiting at parking lot to meet their children who were returning from a summer camp, received word that the school bus they were travelling in had rolled over on the highway. Others heard it on the car radio, some via text messages and cell phone calls.

What came next has the potential to be a nightmare for emergency responders and planners... concerned parents rushing directly to the scene.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2009/07/11/10102906-sun.html

If you can expect it, you better plan for it. Whether you are planning for incidents involving schools, daycares, camps, school buses, amusement parks, zoos, or any location where children gather, EM planners need to consider anxious and frightened parents showing up demanding to be with their children, wanting to know immediately where they are and how they are.

Incident Managers need to assign personnel to set up a staging location for the parents, be prepared to provide accurate information quickly, and have a plan to bring parent and child together as soon as possible. Plan for the media to target worried and anxious parents.

While the July 11th incident had a good ending with all of the children being released from hospital by the 12th, the risk of a more serious incident is very real.

If you don't have a plan to deal with such incidents, there is another job for this week's task list.

H1N1 - interesting impacts

Over the past week I have attended a couple of emergency planning meetings where the H1N1 was on the agenda. The consensus continues to be that the H1N1 is no more dangerous that the annual influenza outbreaks that occur each year. Most cases are mild and do not require hospitalization or medical care. Although there have been fatalities due to the H1N1 the numbers are not any higher than the annual influenza.

The public perception of H1N1, on occasion, is that of fear (driven by the media???) resulting in some interesting impacts. Attached is a link to a news story in Florida where a bus transporting children home from a trip to Orland made an "emergency" stop at a hospital with fears the children had H1N1.

http://www.wftv.com/news/20016497/detail.html

Now that summer camps are in full swing and other activities where large groups of people gather, similar incidents are always possible.

Education efforts for camp staff, other summer activity staff, parents, and the media are important to ensure an appropriate response to any illness outbreak and reduce the risk 50 people showing up at the local ER on a bus.