By Caitlin Yamada
Sioux City Journal
SIOUX CITY, Iowa — In case of an emergency, UnityPoint Health – St. Luke’s wants to make sure they are prepared for evacuations.
Part of the preparation is ensuring emergency rescue personnel can reach and evacuate the hospital’s sixth-floor intensive care unit.
Kevin Handke, UnityPoint emergency management program manager, watched Tuesday afternoon, along with other hospital personnel, as Sioux City fire pulled up to the front of the hospital and began the process of raising the ladder to the windows.
Handke has been with UnityPoint for seven years and a paramedic in the community for 35 year. This is the first time the departments and the hospital have practiced the maneuver. Last year, the hospital underwent a tabletop disaster drill, simulating a full power outage and full evacuation of the hospital.
“With our most critical patients being on the sixth floor, we looked at another alternative to be able to get patients out, so we reached out to our fire departments,” he said.
Sioux City firefighters Dustin Kuehl, James Martin, and Nathan Sturgeon lead the drill Tuesday afternoon. The simulation was done with a full parking lot, as Handke said that is more likely the scenario.
Sturgeon and Kuehl in the bucket were able to reach the sixth floor as well as the roof of the building.
“We wouldn’t have know that if we hadn’t come out today to practice that,” Kuehl said. “It’s always good to find out before you have that emergency. Today, it’s all in a controlled manner, there’s no lives at stake so we were able to accomplish this in a training exercise and we’re able to determine if we had to make any corrections.”
Later in the day, North Sioux City Fire Department and Sergeant Bluff Fire & Rescue at the same time, accessing two different sides of the ICU.
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