(Greenwood, S.C., April 27, 2023) Self Regional Healthcare, in partnership with Greenwood County, Greenwood County Emergency Management, Greenwood County EMS, Greenwood County FD and Abbeville County School District, hosted a Mass Casualty Drill on Wednesday, April 26, to better prepare community responders for emergency casualty care at the time of a disaster and practice important safety objectives.
A group of 4 adults and 16 school-age children from Abbeville County Career Center simulated the arrival of victims of a school bus accident with a mix of injuries ranging from neurological, skeletal, burns and others.
Trieste Underhill, Safety and Emergency Preparedness Coordinator for Self Regional Healthcare said, “This exercise has been months in planning, and we are thankful for the relationships we have with our community partners. Exercises like these strengthen all of our abilities to serve our communities and our patients.”
Several Self Regional departments worked with the community organizations to execute transport of the “patients” as well as assessment of their injuries and plans of care.
Greenwood County Emergency Services Director, Derek Oliver, explained, “Mass casualty incidents affect communities and hospitals without warning, overwhelming resources and personnel. This training is essential for emergency services to assess our strengths and weaknesses and develop trust and communication with our hospitals. This training allows our emergency services personnel to have a solid plan for handling a mass casualty before an incident occurs, providing for quicker response in an actual mass casualty event.”
The goal of the drill is to equip community responders to be ready for a mass casualty incident at any moment.
Self Regional’s Emergency Management served as the command center during the exercise, where they tracked and transferred patients, coordinated next steps and worked with other departments to stock the emergency room with supplies, assess traumas and triage patients.
Dallas Swartzentruber, Coordinator of the SRH Trauma Center explained, “You never want to see this type of scenario play out in the real world, but we want to make sure we are 100% prepared as a community should this type of accident happen. That’s why we have these drills. They save lives.”
The drill started at 8:30am and was completed at 11:00am.
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About Self Regional Healthcare
Self Regional Healthcare is a not-for-profit, regional referral hospital that provides care to residents of Greenwood, Abbeville, Laurens, Saluda, McCormick, Edgefield and Newberry counties. Services include prevention and wellness, acute care and tertiary care services including cancer care, neurosurgery, heart and vascular surgery, NICU, orthopedics and genetics. Self Medical Group is its employed physician affiliate network of 44 practices and more than 200 physicians.
