By Anya Sostek
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PITTSBURGH — On the North Shore, a giant clock is counting down the days until next month’s NFL Draft in Pittsburgh.
And for various entities tasked with hosting an event that could involve more than half a million people, time is ticking as well.
Thursday morning, Allegheny General Hospital did its part to prepare for one worst-case scenario: a mass casualty event at the draft.
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In the simulated drill, hospital medical staff got an alert around 9 a.m. that a gunman had opened fire at the draft. Eighteen minutes later, the hospital received its first casualty. Over the next hour or so, patients arrived via ambulance, gurney or on foot. Family members came looking for loved ones. Tempers flared and hospital social workers and doctors did their best to calm tensions.
“We want this as lifelike as possible,” said Brent Rau, medical director for the AGH emergency department. “It’s not just doctors and nurses — we’ve got paramedics, we’ve got security at all the entrances acting like a true mass casualty event. We’ve got increased custodial staff turning over beds. It’s an all-hands-on-deck process.”
Just prior to giving an interview, Dr. Rau took a moment to wipe fake blood off of his forehead. He participated in the simulation from a different perspective than usual — as a patient with a gunshot wound, who arrived at AGH via ambulance, en route to the operating room.
To prepare for the draft, hospital staff had been in touch with the NFL, said Dr. Rau, as well as with personnel in Detroit and Green Bay, Wisc., where the draft was held in previous years. Although this drill was geared toward the draft, AGH does simulations for mass casualty events a couple times per year, he said.
At AGH Thursday morning, Dr. Rau estimated that about 50 staff members participated in the simulation.
A rotating group — including Kathy Sikora, a nurse and AHN director of emergency services — crowded under a triage tent outside the entrance to the emergency room, handling patients as they arrived.
Kelly McPoland, who portrayed a patient with a gunshot wound, is examined during Thursday’s drill.( Giuseppe LoPiccolo/Post-Gazette )
At one point, an agitated patient, portrayed convincingly by an actress, stormed into the triage area furious that she hadn’t been treated yet.
“She was waiting down in the minor treatment area, and it wasn’t fast enough for her,” said Ms. Sikora, in response. “Patients get upset if it’s not fast enough. But she’s been through a traumatic experience too. We’ll get her hooked up with social work.”
Darrin Stack, of Shaler, isn’t an actor but came to portray a patient with a gunshot wound at the request of his wife, who works at AGH. Mr. Stack was taken into the hospital, ordered to be confused but able to speak.
Sporting a nasty forehead wound and a Penn State sweatshirt soiled by drips of blood, he found the experience disturbingly realistic, he said.
“It’s actually kind of scary,” he said. “You go in, you are sitting there, the doctors are around you. It’s something that I hope I don’t have to ever, ever experience, but it is kind of interesting. Practice makes perfect.”
AGH staff during the drill tested a new real-life emergency tracking system, which includes wristbands color-coded with patient injury status, from “minimal” to “deceased.”( Giuseppe LoPiccolo/Post-Gazette )
As Mr. Stack noted, the scene Thursday morning was similar to a mass casualty event portrayed last season on the HBO Max television show “The Pitt,” which films its exterior shots at AGH.
In addition to managing patient care, the AGH staff was also testing a new real-life emergency tracking system called EMTrack, which includes wristbands color-coded with patient injury status, from “minimal” to “deceased.” Each bracelet has a unique barcode accessible via an app on a mobile device.
“We may not have names but we know the person,” said Ms. Sikora. “We have the tag so we can scan them and follow them.”
By around 9:45 a.m., the hospital had treated 18 fictional patients, with conditions ranging from gunshot wounds to trampling injuries such as fractures.
Because the simulation took place at the entrance to the emergency department, employees also navigated the ambulances and drivers taking real patients to the hospital.
The exercise gave hospital staff an opportunity to practice “disaster medicine” that is an emergency even by ER standards. “This is more rapid fire,” said Dr. Rau . “You’re trying to understand, basically, what’s wrong with you? Are you sick? Can you wait a little bit? Do you need to go to the operating room right now? It’s not something we do every day.”
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