Local hospital conducts Mass Casualty Drill

LAKEWOOD, Colo. (KDVR) — On Thursday morning, St Anthony’s Hospital in Lakewood conducted a “mass casualty incident” drill. This is meant to look and sound like the real thing and hospital staff is supposed to respond like it is.

They’re preparing for an all-hands-on-deck type situation whether it’s a natural disaster, mass shooting or any other emergency where there could be a bunch of victims coming in at one time.

Hospital staff at Common Spirit and West Metro Fire, are holding this drill to practice their response system and make sure they’re ready for any incident that may unfortunately happen.

“As a level 1 trauma center, we have an obligation to our community to be prepared to respond and receive patients from an MCI scenario and have a surgical response plan to address a surge of victims that may need surgical intervention for life-threatening injuries,” said Common Spirit.

They will practice everything from triaging patients when they get there, to going through the surgeries.

The patients will be in moulage, which means stage makeup, prosthetics, and fake blood to make it look like they are really hurt, but it’s all anatomically correct.

Rhys Williams, the CEO of SMRT, provided the moulage as training materials and stated why it’s important.

“It’s going to feel real, absolutely, and that is also going to test their ability to manage that stress. So it’s not just a technical matter of future wounds, but also managing your team, keeping your team together, communicating roles with your team,” said Williams.

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