By Lerone Graham
The Roanoke Times
ROANOKE, Va. — About 20 emergency vehicles responded to Roanoke Regional Airport on Thursday evening. Passengers flying in might have looked out their windows to see fire, debris and bodies sprawled out for yards — but it was only a test. The airport hosted a live emergency response drill, including an aircraft fire simulator, which involved 23 agencies in various jurisdictions.
Roanoke Fire-EMS and police, fire departments in Salem and Roanoke County, state police, the Red Cross, the Roanoke Regional Airport Commission, Carilion Clinic and other agencies participated in the drill, which is conducted every three years in accord with a Federal Aviation Administration mandate.
“It’s going to be very realistic,” airport spokeswoman Amanda DeHaven said before the drill. “We’ve got a real fire, we’ve got victims that they’re going to have to evaluate and decide what kind of care they need. I don’t know how much closer you can get to the real thing.”
Independent evaluators were on hand to take notes. They also gave a brief evaluation immediately after the drill to point out mistakes, with an in-depth official evaluation to come Sept. 30. The “victims” are mostly recruited through word of mouth, often family and friends of an employee of one of the agencies involved, DeHaven said.
Paul Chauvin of Salem said he heard about the drill on the airport’s Web site and decided he would like to participate. “I travel quite a bit, so I just thought it’d be interesting to see,” he said. Chauvin was given the role of an unconscious victim with second-degree burns on part of his arms and a fractured leg.
Debbie Kavanaugh of Roanoke has plenty of prior experience with emergency drills as part of the local Citizen’s Police Academy Alumni Association. She said 23 members participated Thursday. As she lay on the concrete with freshly prepared synthetic blood streaming from her nostrils and ears, Kavanaugh anticipated the beginning of the drill.
“They really did their best to make it as real as possible,” Kavanaugh said.
Sandy Nichols, who works for the state’s Office of Emergency Services providing makeup for these types of scenarios, said the number of volunteers allowed them to get creative with their “victims.” Some of the injuries included victims with an object lodged in an eye, various burns and cuts, missing limbs and broken bones.
Various objects including clothing items from luggage, prosthetic limbs and mannequins were strewn throughout the area. The drill began with a fire about 15 feet from an aircraft. A fire truck pulled up to extinguish the fire within a few minutes. As other emergency vehicles pulled up, they began rescuing victims who could walk, after announcing over a loudspeaker in three languages for them to congregate in a designated area.
Victims were coached on how to act out their injury or death and had notecards on them detailing the injury. Fifteen people were to be taken later to Lewis-Gale Medical Center in Salem as part of the exercise. Every agency had a role during the drill, with DeHaven even simulating sending out news releases during the incident. The drill began at 8 p.m. and ended about 11:30 p.m. No flights were affected by the drill, and an explanatory message played throughout the airport every 10 minutes, DeHaven said.
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