DEERFIELD — The screaming seemed like it would never stop.
Sprawled across two Amtrak seats, I looked up and saw a group of women clutching limbs and writhing in pain. A blond woman, with a baby pressed tight against her body, darted past me as a first responder approached to assess the gash on my left arm.
He asked if I was able to walk. I was. Once outside, others like me huddled together and an older man asked if there were any chairs around so he could take a load off.
It was all part of a mass casualty incident training drill sponsored by the Franklin County Regional Emergency Planning Committee and its host, the Franklin Regional Council of Governments. The coordinated effort took place at the Pan Am Railways yard at 95 McClelland Farm Road in Deerfield and 30 organizations used the opportunity for emergency training purposes.
Nate Burgess, an instructor with Community911 Training, explained the drill’s focus was triage, or the assessment of injuries and their severity. Volunteers had fake wounds applied to their bodies (with lots of fake blood for extra effect) and were assigned to one of three train cars or a Franklin Regional Transit Authority bus in which to play wounded victims of non-specific accidents.
First responders rushed to the wounded and assigned colors to people based on the severity of their injuries. Green means the victim is categorized as “walking wounded,” or has sustained relatively minor injuries. Yellow signifies slightly more serious injuries and red means the patient is a priority because he faces an immediate threat to life. Black means the victim is dead or facing unpreventable death.
Burgess said the drill went as well as expected.
“These drills are designed to push all sorts of boundaries, in terms of what our capabilities and capacities are. They’re designed, in some ways, to make us fail, so we can have the built-in learning experiences,” he said as the drill was winding down. “The drill went, I think, really well. It was nicely organized.”
The rail yard resembled a scene from “The Walking Dead” and people young and old conversed with one another with their faces and clothes stained with fake blood. A tent was set up so first responders could apply fake wounds onto the volunteers and the area looked like an off-season haunted house in the soggy, wet weather.
According to Angus “Terry” Dunn, a public information officer with the Northwest Massachusetts Incident Management Team (NMIMT), Amtrak and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority provided the train cars, Pan Am Railway donated use of the land, and Western Regional Homeland Security Advisory Council footed the $15,000 bill for supplies, equipment and food.
Matt Wolkenbreit, the executive director of Community911 Training, was conscious of all the organizations and businesses that contributed their help and he had a request for his volunteers.
“If you have leaky wounds of any type, please do not get them on the Amtrak seats,” he told a group of people.
Burgess said the drill serves as training and community relations.
“Our volunteer victims are a priceless resource. You just can’t put a value on them — they’re awesome. They’ve come here, they’ve completely given a day, ruined their clothes,” he said. “They’ve been subjected to cold, wet, miserable conditions for a lot of the day and they’ve been excited and wonderful about it. We can say thank you enough to those people.”
NMIMT member Dennis Annear said one purpose of the drill was to help usher in the return of tourniquet usage in emergency medicine. He explained tourniquets once fell out of favor with the medical community because they were viewed as counter-productive, but they are now making a comeback. Annear said the successful treatment of soldiers injured in Iraq has had a lot to do with this resurgence.
Annear said the incident management team was organized in 2009 to assist the local fire chiefs in complying with federal and state mandates requiring responses to be managed using the Incident Command System.
Annear said federal law requires communities to participate in a local or regional emergency planning committee. All communities in Franklin County have chosen to participate in a regional one, he said. This committee meets quarterly to discuss matters related primarily to hazardous materials.