FireLink

How well prepared do you feel your Fire Department is to handle a Mukti-Casuilty incident?

We are a pretty small department, only 22 on the books, but about 10 of us are 1st responder or EMT.  We get some multi-patient ( 5 is alot ) ocean rescue calls occasionally, and thanks to good county-paid medics, we handle them OK. It's hard to say what we'd do with more than 8-10 patients at once. Our mutual aid neighbor is not very much on the medical side of things, and the closest rescue squad is @ 30 minutes out.

Well we actually had a major incident today. In the city I live in, A major pipeline that runs gas, ruptured today. It was noticed when people in the neighborhood was feeling side effects. When all of our ambulances where in the same area, it became obvious that there was a connection. City fire dept. found the rupture pipeline and called in the police dept to help. A few minutes later The fire dept issued complete evacuation of a city block. So we had to evacuate residents. Then some of the police and firefighters started having symptoms of posioning, so they were taken to the hospital. We set up rehab stations everywhere. Several hours later the gas company shut of the gas, but only to find another rupture in another part of the line. So we were calling in extra man power and mutual aid from nearby depts. The gas company finally got it contained. And everyone was eventually allowed back into their homes. What I didn't realize nor have I've ever heard about before, was that our dispatch has what's called a cable over ride. Where dispatch controls all radio stations and tv stations, and alerts the public about the danger. I thought that was really cool, I  think it is a very useful tool when controlling the scene and keeping other people safe.