East Texas ER services in drills Friday in Tyler

TYLER – On Friday, local and state emergency services had the opportunity to sharpen their skills in a realistic trauma simulation at Green Acres Baptist Church. According to our news partner KETK, the full-scale drill in Tyler brought together more 150 personnel from agencies from around East Texas for disaster exercises. Some of those participating in the drill were Christus Health, Tyler Police and Smith County Fire. The agencies used over 200 volunteer actors and students to act as the victims.

Charles Clanton, Smith Co. ESD 2 Division Chief Of Training In Emergency Medical Services described the drill concept, “A device was trigged of some variety. It was not real clear what the device released in the area of the band concert and so there were a number of injured people. They’ll go through the full process today of how one of these situations would be managed both from a response component and a recovery component. The ability to respond to something, get a command structure in place properly manage it, make sure what we’re dealing with, and then respond appropriately.

According to the Piney Woods Regional Advisory Council (RAC-G) website, they are a “non-profit, tax-exempt member organization comprising of 24 Hospitals, 18 EMS Providers, numerous Associate Members, Intermediate Care Facilities, Group Homes, Assisted Living, and most recently, Dermatologists.”

RAC-G sponsored the exercise with the goal of being ready to save lives.

“We can test everyone that participates, their abilities to respond in an incident like this and that way they can identify their strengths and areas that they need to improve,” Michael Johnson, Piney Woods Regional Advisory Council hospital preparedness manager, said.