A Day at the Ball Park?:

When we got the word that they wanted 1000 volunteers to practice a mass casualty incident to act as injured, of course we'd volunteer. I heard about it from my friend who teaches CPR and then again a notice at the Kryolan makeup store. They just said wear old clothes that you don't mind getting dirty so you can be 'moulaged' with fake blood, injuries, and riding on stretchers! They had me at firemen. Convenient that they chose to do it the weekend right after Halloween. I suppose they didn't want to really scare people with fake blood and it's right after all the one year 9-11 remembrances.

We were coming with friends and wondered how we could participate. In the end only a few showed up. There were a large number of people. I'd doubt 1000, more like 200.

We got there, signed up, and got a ticket for beer. Now we're talking. 'Beer for Breakfast'. We had just come from Miss P's party, The party of the social season. Crashed out at 5 a.m. with a few people at someone's house who was close and woke up before 8 a.m. to make the day of it. We got there and had coffee and donuts with the police officers.

We asked if we could be volunteers but they already said they had enough victims. Oh right, 'those people that showed up on time', yeah, we had meant to be one of them. But persistence pays and finally they decided to 'bring in the dead'.

Dead at Ground Zero:

He asked if I was going to be 'triaged' or ''dead on the scene'. I thought he was joking.

But a bucket of blood later and we were in business. 'First date for the two of you?' someone joked as we got 'sponged' down.

Then we got to sit back and watch the cheerleaders at the high school football team practice.

We went to sit in the stands. We tried to figure out where we could be the biggest emergency exit aisle-blocking obstacle, but we managed to clump with too many of the dead. Sat around waiting for the action. We tried to sit close to the wreckage scattered amongst the stands.

It's going down:

The plane started to smoke. One of the cheerleaders fell down. There was a lot of screaming as the observers egged us on.

Send in the Fireman:

There were some couples and family members that were shouting trying to get the firemen's attention.

The bomb squad came in later looking like Ninja Turtles in their green helmeted suits. They told us to can it. Not sure if that was because they needed calm and no disruption, noise or vibration or just because the filming would be on them and no reason for us to do things that weren't being filmed.

Lessons learned:

Bring your own red tape ;)

The firefighters came around to triage the situation. They marked people with tags: black for casualties, red for urgent, yellow for less urgent. It was a bit disconcerting when the firemen talking to each other said 'start wherever you want'. Times when it may pay to be in that right demographic or not be too much of a back strain for them.

The End is Over:

We joked, 'Well now that we've got only the dead left it's time to rifle through their pockets and check for jewelry and gold teeth.' The fireman behind us laughed. One of the police yelled up about what to do with us (to see if they could let us go yet). I joked "Okay, now the dead are going to be sorted into the good and the bad pile. Or set for reincarnation if you didn't get it right in this life." (I'd come back as a cat.)

'I was in a smoky fire place. I saw a flash of light and then I went to an even more smoky and fiery place. Good thing I knew my way around. ;)

What do you do after a day like this?:

"Wanna get lunch?"

They had burgers and hotdogs and snacks with the Red Bull sponsored drinks and cokes. "So you come out of a situation like that and that would be the first thing you'd want?: "Red Bull- brings you back from the dead."" I'm surprised they haven't been working that angle, like a prisoner's last meal, it's your 'next meal', like after you survived.

I'm not sure on the final numbers. 40 black, 30 red, 15 yellow. When they did the head count, someone held up a mannequin head. The counter laughed and said 'we'll just count you as one'. I never did get to see what happened on the outside as we were the last to go. The EMTs had a triage station outside. I'm sure part of the drill was setting up and getting the crowd to get out of the stadium.

The cool thing was that afterward we 'got sent to the showers' to clean up. And got to go inside the visiting team 'clubhouse'. Now I can say that I've been in the men's locker room. It wasn't nearly as exciting as I expected.

What do WE really do?:

Triage. One police asked where someone was bleeding from and they said they would have told them to put their hand over a wound. Checking their breathing for respirations per minute and pulse rate.

And the only orders the crowd got were to get out if you could walk. Yeah, it's easier for them to get in, but I'd wonder what someone could do, if they were already on the scene. Although you might not want someone untrained pronouncing you dead, the fireman questioned someone, checked vitals, and checked back to see if there was any change after that, and then tag them.

The Training Simulation Value:

As a trainer, I saw a lot of things that could have been done better, but that's the point of a drill. There was some fumbling around, lots of duplication of effort. Spending too much on the black tags when there were clearly reds and yellows that needed assistance. Police and firemen moving the wreckage, although they weren't supposed to as it was a crime scene. One firewoman was clearly annoyed with another. The chief pulled someone out, saying "don't tire yourself, there's another unit coming." The firemen seeing so much that needed to be done and he wanted to keep coming back. The units grouped at the end and make sure all their people were accounted for. I heard at least one fireman tell another to 'tell the chief that he had went back in'. It's good to see them watching each other's backs.

Post-Traumatic Stress Reorder:

Good thing I have a positively morbid sense of humor. And I wasn't the only one. I guess that's what I'd do to not get freaked by this.

I wonder why more people don't get involved.

Photos:(click for full roll)

Quotes:

"Had a total blast with you guys."
-(Dadafest organizer) m.i.blue and his zombie friend lauren