A car bomb exploded at DePaul Medical Center, destroying the
facility’s electricity source and cutting off all water to the
patients inside.
Michael Moore – Special to the Dispatch
Morgan Hill
A car bomb exploded at DePaul Medical Center, destroying the facility’s electricity source and cutting off all water to the patients inside.
Paramedics, firefighters and other emergency response personnel from throughout Santa Clara County reacted quickly to find safe places to move and treat the patients. Doctors, nurses and public health officials were brought in to assist hospital staff in stabilizing the sick and injured, some of whom were in serious condition before the explosion. And the efforts of everyone responding were tightly coordinated, so the evacuation could take place as efficiently and safely as possible.
Of course, this was not an actual incident. Rather, it was the scenario played out in a planned countywide training exercise at an empty hospital in Morgan Hill Thursday. More than 300 emergency response workers and volunteers from Gilroy to Palo Alto participated in the simulated terrorist attack, which was designed specifically to test the ability of public agencies to work together in response to emergencies.
Bruce Lee, director of Santa Clara County’s Emergency Medical Services Agency, called the three-day event a “full-scale, multi-jurisdictional exercise.”
It was fitting that the “attack,” the climax of the exercise, took place on Sept. 11, as response coordination has been a constant target for improvement from local to federal levels since the actual terrorist attacks took place on the same day seven years ago.
“Our work today is about lessons learned, doing it better, and, most importantly, working together with all the components of our system,” said Lee, whose office was responsible for planning the exercise.
The primary focus of the test was to gauge the medical response capacity of public agencies all over the county, after fire and criminal threats are mitigated in a potential terrorist attack.
Lee added that the exercise, which started Wednesday, also consisted of classes and training sessions to prepare the participants for the event. Friday, the third day of the drill, would include an evaluation of how the agencies and individuals would have responded if the emergency had been real.
The drill was meticulously planned for more than six months, with a well-crafted story that the disgruntled relative of a patient set off the explosive device in the trunk of a vehicle. Paramedics, firefighters, law enforcement officers and emergency vehicles were present. Volunteers played the roles of 54 patients who were being treated in the acute care facility when the domestic terrorist attack took place. Some lay on stretchers wrapped in bloody bandages, waiting for hospital staff to move them. Others were pushed out on wheelchairs, loaded into ambulances waiting outside the Emergency Room.
Doctors and nurses from various hospitals in Santa Clara County also participated.
Even a junked car was used as a prop for the vehicle that carried the explosive device. The car was still smoldering where it was detonated behind the hospital, next to the facility’s power source.
DePaul Medical Center in Morgan Hill has been unused and empty for the last eight years. The building’s owner, Saint Louise Regional Hospital of Gilroy, sponsored the training event, providing the building and dozens of staff members.
“It’s not easy to have an empty hospital available, and we are very pleased to make this facility, and our staff and associates available,” said Chelva Kumar, the hospital’s chief financial officer.
Coordinators of the event said they were unaware of such a large-scale training exercise having ever taken place in California, and were certain that none had ever occurred in an empty hospital.
According to Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Lt. Ed Wise, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has made grant funds available to pay for up to $125,000 of the cost of Thursday’s drill. The remaining costs will be borne by the local agencies who participated. Wise did not immediately know the full cost of the exercise, but expected to easily surpass the grant amount.
The Sheriff’s Office, Public Health Department, and the Office of Emergency Services were among the Santa Clara County agencies present at the exercise. Fire and police departments, as well as ambulance services from Gilroy, Morgan Hill, Mountain View, Milpitas, San Jose, and Palo Alto were also represented.
