Emergency responders learn from mock disaster drill

Imagine for a moment that someone from Southeast Missouri became hugely successful in the entertainment field, enough to draw 50,000 people from the area to a concert in St. Louis.

While some 400 people imagined such a possibility Wednesday morning, they also imagined that a few days following that concert, they all developed the same flu-like symptoms: fever, weakness, cough. Some also had nausea and abdominal pain, others developed pneumonia.

While these people were at the imaginary concert, an imaginary terrorist unleashed pneumonic plague at the concert hall.

No one likes to think this could possibly happen, but health departments from Cape Girardeau, Bollinger, Butler, New Madrid and Howell counties held a drill to practice what they would do in the event of a bioterrorist attack. No one wants to imagine it, but they're prepared for it.

Volunteers gathered at the Saint Francis Conference Center on Mount Auburn Road, where the health departments set up a triage. Emergency medical personnel from the area, as well as other counties across the state, ran through the procedures they would follow in the event of a real attack.

First respondersPublic health nurse Ladeva Enderle said that had the scenario been real, the health departments would have been the first to know. The health departments get daily reports from area hospitals and selected clinics, and they watch for trends. A large number of people with plague symptoms would alert public health officials to the need for a massive treatment effort.

Wednesday morning the state health department called the area health departments and, using information gleaned from reports throughout the area, sent them to Poplar Bluff to pick up the antidote.

After bringing it back, the Cape Girardeau County Health Department, and the other participating counties, set up a treatment center and began alerting potential victims. Plague is easily spread, Enderle said. Those who attended the imaginary concert could infect others throughout a large area in about a week.

Medical personnel gathered information from the volunteer victims, who were then directed to clinics set up at the conference center. One clinic was set aside for special needs patients: pregnant women, elderly, diabetics, foreigners who don't speak English well, even a few disruptive people. Others were routed to the main clinic area. Had it been a real event, patients would have been given a dose of strong antibiotics and given more with instructions on how to take the drug at home. Since it wasn't real, they were given jelly beans.

Volunteers were also given a card describing the kind of patient they were to portray. Drill planners included every possible medical or social problem they might encounter in an actual event.

It was easy for volunteers to have fun with the drill when they were asked to portray someone totally out of character.

A middle-aged woman, one of the first ushered into the special needs clinic, stopped short of the first attendant and exclaimed, "Oh, I forgot how I walked when I was pregnant."

Ryan Smith of Cape Girardeau, a student with the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, staggered in, dismissed the emergency workers who tried to assist him and slumped in a chair. After a few uncooperative moments, a nurse handed him a few pages of information and told him "when you sober up you can read it."

Afterward Smith said the experience, although it was fun playing a drunk, taught him how it's possible for a disruptive person to "get in people's way if they're not paying attention to you. They didn't tell me what the pills were for. Probably a drunk person couldn't understand."

Had the situation been real, those who were participating in the drill agreed that there would be more panic and pandemonium. Although the police were there, they weren't needed for crowd control. They would be in a real situation.

"Until it happens, you don't know how you would react," said Jo Ann Stinson, a volunteer from the Jefferson County Health Department.

Ruth Dockins, director of the Area Agency on Aging, portrayed a family of three, including a 38-year-old man with cerebral palsy.

"It went really smoothly," she said, "but in real life there would be too much panic going on. I think these people working are very well prepared and I think they're doing a good job guiding people, getting information and moving them right along."

In the next few days, Enderle said, public health personnel will get together, go over the event, and decide where they need to make changes. They'll be prepared if a bioterrorist attack occurs, but they will all, as Stinson said, "just hope and pray it never happens."

And for those who like happy endings, Enderle said that the imaginary terrorists responsible for the attack of the plague are now in FBI custody.

lredeffer@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160