Preparedness - KCHC

How a Vancouver Hospital Readied
for the Hockey Riots
CTV NEWS | Angela Mulholland
A police car burns during a riot in
downtown Vancouver,
Wednesday, June 15, 2011.
(Geoff Howe / THE CANADIAN PRESS)
Remembering this spring's Stanley Cup riots in Vancouver can still make
many Canadians cringe. The four hours of destruction that rained down
on the city stunned the whole country. But St. Paul's Hospital in
Vancouver's downtown had actually had been preparing for them since
long before the playoffs began. For each playoff game, as many as
75,000 people had filled the downtown to watch on giant screens. By the
time Game 7 rolled around, tension was mounting and hospital staff
knew that even with a win, there was going to be trouble.
By 10 p.m. that night, the riots were well underway and the injuries
pouring in. But St. Paul's was ready to handle them, says Jeanette
Beattie, the hospital's head of emergency preparedness.
Like many large hospitals in Canada, St. Paul's has staff whose sole job is to plan the hospital's response to
disasters, manmade or otherwise. Beattie says on the night of the hockey riots, St. Paul's was able to make use
of all the training and preparations done ahead of the Vancouver Olympics. They had practiced what they'd
do by running mock scenario drills. One major exercise they practiced involved police, paramedics, and 85
volunteers in full costume and "moulage" makeup pretending to be injured passengers from a plane crash.
Beattie says in all, 140 groups took part, learning how to coordinate an efficient response that would allow the
injured to be transported and treated quickly.
On the night of the riots, things started to get ugly around 8
p.m., when spectators started throwing bottles and burning
Boston Bruins jerseys. By 10 p.m., there were so many injured
pouring into St. Paul's and nearby Vancouver General Hospital,
both declared a Code Orange -- hospital code for an influx of
mass casualties. Staff were asked not to go home after their
shifts but to help out in the emergency department in whatever
way they could. Nine physicians were brought into the ER,
instead of the usual two, and more security staff were called in.
A contingent of nurses was assigned to run a pre-arranged
decontamination station outside the ER, for the tear gas injuries.
They set out garbage bins filled with water so people could
dunk their heads to relieve the burning from the gas. By keeping
the tear gas injuries outside, staff ensured the ER itself was never
contaminated with the powder.
Tear gas was expelled very close to the hospital,
forcing an emergency shut off of St. Paul’s HVAC
system; meaning that the hospital's operating rooms
were no longer "negative pressure rooms"
(Geoff Howe / THE CANADIAN PRESS)
Other staff operated a triage station in a courtyard outside the emergency department to treat those with
minor injuries. Inside, doctors dealt with the more serious injuries, such as stab wounds, burns, and broken limbs.
Other nurses were also asked to help patients who were having trouble with the psychological impact of the
night. "People really were traumatized. There was the fear, the pepper spray, boyfriends hurt, girlfriends hurt. So
we had two psychosocial leads come in," says Beattie.
In all, 147 injured rioters and bystanders headed to St. Paul's ER -- most of them arriving in a two-hour period --
about twice as many as the emergency department typically sees in a night. Only four had to be admitted.
Beattie says the system ran smoothly amid the chaos and pretty much according to plan. The only thing that
the hospital had not prepared for was the drifting tear gas.
That lesson will likely be integrated into the hospital's planning as it gets ready for the next disaster, because as
Beattie points out, when it comes to disaster management, "the planning never stops."
Full Article: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20110805/vancouver-riots-hospital-preps-110807/
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