Hams Assist Mock Plane Crash Drill -
14 SEP 97: In a test of emergency preparedness, the West
Webster fire department simulated a crash of a
commercial airliner at the site of the Plank Road School.
Responding to the crash were numerous fire departments,
ambulance corps, military personnel and other emergency
support organizations.
Supporting the drill were four local hams, WW2J(Larry),
N2JAC(John), KA1CNF(Steve) and AA2LQ(Warren). Their role in
the activity was to provide communications via packet radio
from the crash site to the disaster response team at Rochester
General Hospital. Specifically, information regarding injuries,
vital signs, on site first aid and other medical information
was transmitted to the hospital via packet radio as the
ambulance left the crash site. At the hospital, the information
was then printed and distributed to the medical team. Normally,
the hospital just receives verbal radio reports from the
ambulances. The printed reports assisted significantly in helping
the hospital prepare for the arrival of patients. Commercial
devices are available that will do exactly what was done by
packet radio, however, to date they have only been discussed by
the emergency response teams. At a critique session after the
drill it was noted that the successful packet demonstration would
provide a significant selling point for establishing such a system.
Overall, this disaster drill went extremely well. One humorous
glitch was when no one remembered to tell the on duty anesthesiologist
that this was just a drill. One of the actor victims was actually
being wheeled into the operating room when this oversight was caught.
The overall coordinator for this drill was Mary Ellen Holtz, daughter
of KE2OW(Gene). The packet station used 144.39 for digital
transmissions and the 145.29 Xerox Repeater for voice.
73 de Warren AA2LQ