By Jack Dew
The Berkshire Eagle
BECKET, Mass. — The emergency response didn’t begin with a panicked phone call from an empty stretch of the Massachusetts Turnpike in Becket at 3:25 a.m.
That call — reporting an overturned bus carrying 28 passengers from the Albany River Rats hockey team and a driver from Lowell back to Albany, N.Y. — set in motion an emergency response that was prepared years ago and fine-tuned over dozens of drills. Ambulance companies, police and fire departments, state police, and Berkshire Medical Center have imagined — over and over again &mdsah; what they should do when the worst happens.
“We have a comprehensive emergency operations plan that has been developed and continually evolved over many years,” said Michael Leary, a Berkshire Medical Center spokesman. “We have the ability to ramp up services and react in a very quick fashion to any emergency situation.”
Thursday morning’s bus crash took place 11 miles east of Lee’s Exit 2 on the Turnpike, and ambulances shuttled the injured along a 31-mile distance to Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield — a trip that, when the roads are not snow-covered like they were, should take a little more than a half-hour in a passenger vehicle.
The 3:25 a.m. call went to the Massachusetts State Police, which immediately began trying to gather crucial information: Where was the crash? How severe were the injuries? Was the bus blocking the road or off in the woods? While most callers along the Turnpike have little idea of their location, said Trooper Eric Benson, a state police spokesman, the advent of cell phones with global positioning technology has made finding callers far easier.
As the first responders, it is up to the state police to assess the accident and summon more help. When there is a crash along the Turnpike, the closest town responds with its fire and ambulance companies and must decide whether to call for help from surrounding communities.
On Thursday, ambulances from Lee, Lenox and Becket rushed to the scene. There, they would have followed the same emergency protocol used across the country, designating an emergency medical technician as the lead contact with Berkshire Medical Center while responders triaged the victims.
Those who could still walk and didn’t need urgent care were given a green tag around their wrist; those who were hurt but not severely received a yellow tag; those in need of emergency treatment a red tag. Likely no black tags — which are reserved for the dead or dying — were used. The red tags would have been taken to Berkshire Medical by ambulance, with the rest to follow by bus.
Berkshire Medical, meanwhile, can summon more staff as needed to handle the inflow. As a level-two trauma center, it has surgeons available within 15 minutes of an emergency and can stabilize and transport any patients whose needs exceed the hospital’s abilities.
Lucy Britton, emergency management coordinator at Berkshire Medical, said the hospital and all the emergency responders will spend the next few weeks reviewing their response to Thursday’s crash, trying to learn from any mistakes or misdirections.
“I think the Berkshires, in particular, have a really good relationship between the hospitals, public safety agencies and EMS,” Britton said. “We work together, we plan together, and knowing each other before you need each other is so important.”