Telluride Medical Center practices for disaster

“This is a drill.”

Gordon Reichard., executive director of the Telluride Medical Center hangs up the phone. He’s just arranged two helicopters to be at the Telluride Medical Center in 20 and 45 minutes respectfully.

One office over, administrative staff are making calls to the nearby Elks Lodge and Ah Haa Art School. They’ll need the extra space right away for makeshift triage centers.

Through the emergency doors, paramedics rush dummies on stretchers towards the waiting doctors and nurses.

That’s right: dummies. This is just a drill.

On Tuesday, the Telluride Medical Center executed a Mass Casualty Incident drill, an annual exercise designed to prepare staff, test procedures and mimic the real deal.

The scenario: An explosion at the Shell station involving at least 10 victims, some of which were dead on the scene. The victims are being transported in waves to the Medical Center.

“This drill is to see how our protocol that we have in place to deal with such an incident, truly works,” said Dr. Diana Koelliker, MD, director of Emergency and Trauma Services at the Medical Center.

All hands are on deck.

“From our front desk to our primary care and our Emergency Room staff,” said Koelliker.

A Mass Casualty Incident, according to Koelliker, constitutes any emergency situation that outstrips the immediate resources of the facility.

And Mass Casualty Incidents do happen.

“Last year we had an incident. A van rolled over with eight people in it. All were transported here during a snowstorm,” said Koelliker.

“Those incidents teach us how to tweak our system and then we do these kinds of exercises to test it,” she said just before running to the bedside of the newest dummie to come through the Emergency Room Door.