Bartlesville Area First Responders Train For Large-Scale Emergency

Bartlesville first responders rushed to rescue plane crash victims on Tuesday as part of a training drill.

For the second time in the past few years, Bartlesville put first responders to the test to see just how ready they would be for something as extreme as a plane crash.

“You know, it is stuff that we need to practice,” said Captain Jay Hastings from the Bartlesville Police Department.  “Sometimes a full-scale event like that, when you have a lot of victims and a fire and plane crash, it is going to consume all our resources pretty quickly.”

The drill was made as real as possible, even using makeup to make the injuries look real.

“If you notice, many of the victims have moulage or makeup on to simulate various injuries and those teams would go ahead and try to assess and triage or rank how serious the injuries are,” said Bill Hollander from the Bartlesville Fire Department.

10/3/2014 Related Story:  Emergency Responders Train For Possible Aircraft Crash At Bartlesville Municipal Airport

Organizers put volunteers in a field near the airport – the site of the mock crash.

Ambulances, firetrucks, a helicopter, and police all rushed in to help.

“In the middle of a true event and emergency, you know that’s kind of the wrong time to be planning or practicing,” said Hastings.  “At that moment, you either need it and don’t have it or you need to know where you can get it.”

Organizers took the drill a step further and took nine people to the hospital to test their response to a large-scale emergency.

“We don’t get to work together, inter-agency, very often so, if we have an inter-agency event like a plane crash would be, it gives us a chance to test our communications, our working together with each other’s teams,” said Hollander.

Organizers say they think the first responders performed better than last time, but there are still areas where they say they can improve.