During an emergency response drill Thursday at Brian Allgood Army Community Hospital, Capt. Huisuk Jones, center, a medical care unit nurse, helps to lift a patient onto a platform for an MRI exam. The staff didn't acutally perform such tests on mock patients, but they did take them through the hospital as needed after assessing their conditions and needs. (Teri Weaver / S&S)
During an emergency response drill Thursday at Brian Allgood Army Community Hospital, Capt. Huisuk Jones, center, a medical care unit nurse, helps to lift a patient onto a platform for an MRI exam. The staff didn't acutally perform such tests on mock patients, but they did take them through the hospital as needed after assessing their conditions and needs. (Teri Weaver / S&S)
Pfc. Megan Downey, left, shouts "Make a hole!" as she and other Brian Allgood Army Community Hospital emergency room staff rush a mock patient up to the intensive care unit Thursday. (Teri Weaver / S&S)
Mock patients evacuate to a safe area Thursday, during an emergency response drill at Brian Allgood Army Community Hospital on Yongsan Garrison. At 10 a.m., the emergency room chief notified the command center that a bus driver in the drill had a bomb inside the ER. That prompted the hospital to call a "code brown," and all nonessential personnel evacuated. All real patients and caregivers stayed inside. (Teri Weaver / S&S)
Maj. Jay Baker, the head of the Brian Allgood Army Community Hospital emergency department, meets with his staff shortly after the drill to talk about what worked and what didn't. The Yongsan Garrison group decided the ER staff had good communication and patient response. They also decided the hospital-wide staff should wear more labels to help identify personnel. (Teri Weaver / S&S)
Col. Ronald E. Smith, commander of the 65th Medical Brigade, speaks to the hospital staff after the drill. "I think it went quite well," he said. "The reassuring part is that we are at a level where we can take care of patients" during an emergency. (Teri Weaver / S&S)
YONGSAN GARRISON, South Korea — The call went out around 8 a.m. Thursday — a bus went through the fence at U.S. Army Garrison Yongsan, and people were hurt.
The staff from the Brian Allgood Army Community Hospital — many of whom were at an early morning briefing in the base’s main movie theater — jumped into cars and rushed to the hospital.
The crash and the response were part of a morning drill to test the hospital staff’s ability to care for multiple casualties, according to Col. Ronald E. Smith, hospital commander.
"I think it went quite well," Smith said shortly before addressing most of the staff. "The reassuring part is that we are at a level where we can take care of patients" during an emergency.
Base firefighters, emergency medical technicians, military police and hospital staff worked for two hours to respond, triage and treat the 23 "patients" from the bus crash.
After they were treated, Maj. Jay Baker, the hospital’s emergency room chief, led a meeting to assess the response.
Patient triage and care went well, most staff members said, despite not having an exact location of the wreck and not knowing how many people were injured. "That’s a positive for the practice, that we were overwhelmed," Baker said.
But it was confusing having so many unfamiliar faces in the emergency room, the staff said. Baker suggested they do more to identify nurses, doctors and medics — even it if means using masking tape — so treatment goes more smoothly.
Maj. John Godesa, the triage officer at the scene, said he probably should have called for backup at the very beginning. With another officer on the scene, "I could have maybe saved one" of the mock victims, he said.
