Pop-up pod system forms inflatable infirmary for disaster response

Editor's Note: This story has been edited to correct a fire department title.

With a blue glow reminiscent of a science-fiction facility, the region’s newest emergency apparatus takes first responders into the future of disaster-response equipment.

The mobile emergency apparatus comprises individual tents, which serve as a network of climate-controlled medical wings, each complete with partitioned spaces for 16 patients. While they can serve as individual facilities, it functions at its fullest when each wing connects to a central module where doctors and nurses can stage.

First responders from Cape Girardeau, Jackson and Stoddard County came together Wednesday afternoon to practice assembling the network of new structures.

“I think a lot of people are impressed by the size of it and how fast [the mobile hospital] can go up,” Cape Girardeau battalion chief Brad Dillow said. “As far as getting something up and someone under a roof, we can do that in minutes.”

Local first responders practice deconstructing a new portable emergency hospital structure Wednesday at Arena Park in Cape Girardeau.BEN MATTHEWS

Cape Girardeau Fire Department battalion chief Randy Morris Jr. said the structure’s architectural layout was similar to that of 1970s-era field hospitals, only with the foundational difference of inflatability. The only thing the pop-up patient-care center cannot provide is the medical staff required for it to operate.

“We can provide maybe some triage for our medics and things of that nature,” Dillow said. “But as far as working on patients and doing high-tech stuff, that’s the hospitals.”

Dillow said the emergency apparatus was acquired by the Regional Homeland Security Oversight Committee (RHSOC) for the primary purpose of providing emergency medical support in the case of a disaster disrupting accessibility to local medical facilities.

Morris said the system of interconnecting tents has been distributed between Stoddard and Cape Girardeau counties to be used individually as smaller relief structures when needed.

In the event of a disaster, regional relief agencies will bring their respective segments of the mobile hospital and connect it to the apparatus’s central module, which is stored in Cape Girardeau, according to Morris.

Cape Girardeau Fire Department battalion chief Randy Morris Jr. gives a tour of a new portable emergency hospital structure Wednesday at Arena Park in Cape Girardeau.BEN MATTHEWS

Despite being primarily intended for disaster situations, Dillow was quick to point out more practical uses for the new shelter equipment.

The chief said it would have been of particular use in 2017, when a group of local first responders traveled to Houston to provide emergency flooding relief.

“We slept on cots underneath a pavilion, and mosquitoes were eating us alive,” Dillow recalled.

He also mentioned the apparatus’ value as a warming shelter during an event such as the annual Polar Plunge held at Trail of Tears State to benefit Special Olympics.

“It makes our team more deployable,” Dillow said about the new pieces of equipment. “Not just for the region, but for the state.”