By Linda Provost
The Duncan Banner
DUNCAN, Okla. — When first responders go out for a call, they never know what will be waiting for them when they get out to the emergency. To give the men and women on the front line one more asset to call on when needed, the Surgical Extraction Team (S.E.T.) was created as a pilot project by Duncan Regional doctor Ché Miller, Kelly Dillion from Air Evac, the Highway Patrol, all of the air ambulances and Bob Stewart. Central High received it’s own taste Wednesday night.
S.E.T. allows responders to get a surgeon flown to help free a person who is entrapped and may need to have an amputation to save their life.
“A surgeon in to the field is a novel concept. There is nothing like that in the civilian United States that works on a protocol like we’ve got,” said Miller. “There are times when getting somebody out of a bad situation is the difference between life and death even if that means they lose a limb,”
This is the fourth drill the S.E.T. crew has performed. This drill was to train two new doctors who joined the team -- Dr. Danny Giles and Dr. Richardson Albertson, both of Duncan.
The mock scenario staged in Central High centered around a man’s arm getting caught in a swather’s front blades. The first responders included Stephens County EMS, Central High Volunteer Fire Department and Oklahoma Highway Patrol. EMS determined they would need S.E.T. and called Medical Emergency Response Center (MERC) to activate the team.
After the doctor had been confirmed the EMS workers stayed in contact with the doctor and shared vital stats and more throughout the drill.
Trooper Benjamin Smith was one of the OHP officers part of the training as part of his second week on the job.
“This is important to us because it’s making connections with people we will be working with on crashes and things,” Smith said. “I’m a brand new Trooper here -- I’ve only been here two weeks so getting these connects especially not being from around here is great for the interpersonal relationships but also providing service to the community.”
Smith said OHP’s job was to set up the area for other first responders to work in.
Smith was in the drill running security when his fellow troopers threw a surprise at him -- a distraught family member played by Jody Dreves, fire chief of Cox’s Store VFD, running into the accident scene who Smith had to detain.
Smith said the public should be aware when they see an accident that everyone there is trying to do their job and to follow orders given.
“Every situation we go to could involve an injury and that injury could affect a family,” he said.
Albertson, one of the doctors who joined S.E.T., stayed on the ground this time and let Giles take the ride in the air ambulance.
“It’s a wonderful thing that the community has done and initially Ché thought it would just be southwest Oklahoma but now there are people from Tulsa that want him to come help set up theirs,” he said.
The first responders are the people Albertson wants to highlight.
“My stand point as a surgeon: It’s a very limited responsibility out here, the idea is do whatever surgically to get them out of the car and moving to definitive care,” he said. “I know because I have ‘MD’ behind my name people think I have done something, but all I did was show up. The people who take the calls, go out to the wreck and the flight nurses, they just need me to show up.”
The wait from calling MERC to getting the surgeon on call to accept the mission and getting to the location took around 45 minutes, after landing and getting Giles to the “trapped” man. Giles freed the man in roughly 12 minutes to get the victim mediflighted to the nearest hospital.
Miller said before the debrief session there had been a need 13 times in the last eight years.
“This is something that is only going to happen twice a year,” he said. “Probably more like once a year.”
Miller said anyone could get the S.E.T. in motion because it was easy to cancel the call for a doctor than need one and them get there too late.
Copyright 2016 The Duncan Banner