Pinckneyville Hospital Drill Plans for the Unthinkable

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The Pinckneyville Community Hospital, the Perry County Ambulance Service, Perry County firefighters, law enforcement personnel and hazardous materials specialists this morning planned for the unthinkable--a train derailing into a school bus full of children.

This was only a drill, but EMTs, doctors and nurses at the Pinckneyville Community Hospital were fully engaged as if it were all real.

The exercise gives participants an opportunity to evaluate current response concepts, plans and capabilities for a response to a disaster event involving the hospital.

Here's how the morning unfolded. At 8 a.m. a southbound freight train derailed on the north side of town at a railroad crossing where a school bus was stopped. The front two rail cars behind the engine hit the school bus. No other vehicles were at the crossing or involved in the accident.

The Pinckneyville Community Hospital is located one mile from the accident scene.

Besides the driver, there are 15 children from the local high school on the bus.

The bus driver and one child are found deceased at the scene. Children in the first six rows of the school bus (seven children) are critically injured and the rest of the children have minor to severe injuries.

The train cargo includes newsprint, tallow (liquid animal fat), molten sulfur, empty car carriers and white phosphorus.

Winds came out of the southwest. Cares No. 3 and No. 4 are extensively damaged and on fire. The primary concern is the phosphorus car. Phosphorus self-ignites in the presence of oxygen and is water reactive.

The phosphorus and molten sulfur cars are both breached. The resulting combination of these two products will also produce hydrogen sulfide gas, which is a rapid systemic poison that induces respiratory paralysis with consequent asphyxia at high concentrations.

The hospital is placed on alert to be prepared for arriving victims and to make plans for possible evacuation if winds should change direction.

None of the victims from the school bus have been contaminated from the phosphorus or other chemicals from the train.

The hospital sets up its decontamination unit.

The exercise focused on key local emergency responder coordination, critical decisions and the integration of emergency resources throughout the area, according to director of nurses Eva Hopp.

The drill focused on Hazmat Response and decontamination, hospital evacuation capabilities and identifying alternate care sites, dealing with mass casualties, fatality management and communication among all responders.

Every response will be gone over in roundtable discussions at the conclusion of the drill.