Scores of people who were participating in an emergency drill arrived at the Park City Medical Center Wednesday afternoon so health workers could practice treating them for carbon monoxide poisoning.
“They came via city bus,” hospital spokeswoman Amy Roberts said in an interview at the medical center.
The scenario was a carbon monoxide leak in a busy Park City hotel two days before Christmas.
“It was cold, snowy and the town was full,” Roberts explained.
The poisonous gas had stricken about 100 people.
“They were triaged at the scene and there were 60 people who came here,” Roberts said.
Though only a drill, Wednesday’s exercise helped prepare responders for an actual emergency, she added.
A hall in the hospital’s emergency department was lined with people who were playing the victims.
“All of the volunteers had a script on what their symptoms were and what the problems were. As they were coming off the bus they were getting additional triage from the hospital, from the nurse and physicians,” Park City Emergency Program Manager Hugh Daniels said. “As it went along some of the patients were given another slip of paper that said they were feeling worse or they’re becoming unconscious. Things would continue to happen.”
One patient was in such poor condition that he had to be wheeled from the bus into the hospital on a gurney, Daniels explained.
“There were a number of little wrinkles to it to test the system and how it works,” Daniels said. “We used two of the city transit buses yesterday to transport victims to the emergency department.”
The drill lasted about two hours.
“This is primarily a hospital exercise on how they would handle mass casualty incidents,” Daniels said. “We’re involved because we’d be involved in a real one. It lets us use our transit system and some of our drivers. We use some city employees as well as hospital volunteers as patients, so it gives people a feel of the real thing.”
Carbon monoxide leaks in Park City are not uncommon in the winter.
“It’s usually in individual residences,” Daniels said.
The Park City Fire District and Park City Police Department also participated in Wednesday’s drill.
“We have to work together as a region and as a community,” Daniels said. “When we do drills we involve multiple agencies.”
The drill is aimed at increasing health workers’ preparedness to respond to incidents involving many seriously injured victims.
“The hospital is looking at some of their communication pathways between departments and so forth,” Daniels said. “If the hospital security needed assistance obviously the police department or the sheriff would potentially be available to help with security. This was set in the evening and it was snowing heavily so the city would need to help keep roads open so ambulances or buses could get in and out.”