Saturday, May 7, 2011

BWI Airport Emergency Exercise

No mass casualty incident (MCI) exercises in more than six months! Don't want to get rusty. Fortunately, BWI airport had one on May 7th.

After five of these, you can tell what's good and what's not so good. Good: Their moulage (simulated wound) artists were excellent. They worked without rubber prosthetics, and didn't just smudge on some powder. See the photo gallery for examples.

Not so good: I've never seen an MCI exercise with less of a rush to treat and transport. One firefighter broke into a trot, and another said, "Joe*, it's not that big a deal." Um... really? It will be when the real thing happens, so it might be good to practice that.

[* Not his real name.]