How Prepared Were Hospitals For An Explosion?
PUEBLO – City leaders have been constantly praising the response from emergency teams after the Branch Inn explosion. From a hospital standpoint, it was a situation that put years of medical training to the test.
NEWSCHANNEL 13wanted to find out just how prepared local hospitals in Pueblo were after the blast.
Just moments after the disaster as first responders arrived on scene, both Pueblo hospitals were already flying into action.
“We looked at the situation, we allocated the appropriate responses to it,” said Mike Baxter, the Chief Operating Officer at Parkview Medical Center.
Both Parkview Medical Center and St. Mary Corwin Hospital officials say they were prepared, and they both say while there is always room for improvement; they still give themselves a good report card.
“I would give ourselves a good grade, probably an A-,” said John Sanchez, the Director of Safety at St. Mary Corwin Hospital.
“I think we did well, I would say A-,” agreed Baxter about Parkview’s response.
Both say, they credit their training for the good grades.
“The training, the drills are extremely important,” explained Jimmy Taylor, the Emergency Preparedness Coordinator with St. Mary Corwin Hospital.
Both hospitals work with the NIMS program, which stands for National Incident Management System.
“We train for a lot of different types of scenarios,” explained Baxter. Those disasters range from smaller incidents to incidents like the explosion in Pueblo. They even train extensively for natural disasters that may create mass-casualties.
“We do have a comprehensive Emergency Management Program, we have trained and qualified staff and we do exercise it regularly so that were prepared to handle those incidents when they come up,” said Sanchez about St. Mary Corwin Hospital.
The hospitals say they take part in at least one major training exercise each year, as well as several others in the community. Officials tell NEWSCHANNEL 13 they learn so much from the incidents like the explosion that they plan to all meet together as a hospital as well as a community to evaluate their response and see where they can make improvements. That way if something like it ever happens again, they will be even more prepared.
