Operation LANCASTER - Canadian Navy

O P E R AT I O N S
Exercise Blackened Chicken
By SLt Bill King
S
uppose Canadian Border Services
Agents (CBSA), formerly called
Canada Customs, encountered a
passenger with severe flu-like symptoms
attempting to enter Canada at passport
control. Now add a World Health Organization
phase four warning suggesting that
the H5N1 virus was present in small clusters
around the world with limited human-tohuman
transmission and the possibility of
a pandemic.
Would healthy passengers be allowed to
collect baggage and leave?
Would ill passengers and crew be taken to
an emergency ward or elsewhere to maintain
the quarantine?
Who would be in overall charge of the
various response agencies involved?
These are some of the questions that were
brought up during the planning phase for
such an emergency in preparation for
exercise Blackened Chicken. In order to
test the Thunder Bay Influenza Response
Plan and develop Domestic Operations
interoperability between the civilian agencies
and military units, HMCS GRIFFON brought
the various agencies together in an exercise
designed to overload the system.
Two CBSA agents board a foreign vessel
and conduct a crew muster. Five crew members
are too ill to get out of their racks and
five others are showing flu-like symptoms.
Consultation with Health Canada and the
Thunder Bay District Health Unit results in
a 911 response by paramedics and police.
The number of contaminated personnel
on board the ship initially rises rapidly
until the Emergency Medical Service (EMS)
on-site coordinator takes control. He must
conserve his resources and manpower in
o rder to evacuate the casualties while
limiting the spread of infection.
10 LI N K Vol.15, No.3, December 2006
It becomes evident that the EMS resources
available on a Saturday morning are insufficient
to handle so many casualties. It would
be more convenient if such an incident took
place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on a weekday
when paramedics could be diverted from
routine patient transfers. Through the
Ontario Provincial Emergency Measure s
Organization, the local EMS coordinator
contacts the duty officer at Domestic
Operations for the region and asks for
help in securing a perimeter and evacuating
casualties to a triage unit being set up
at the Thunder Bay District Health
Unit. An ambulance is dispatched from
the 18 th Field Ambulance. Trucks and vans
arrive from the 18 th Service Battalion, and
HMCS GRIFFON diverts two boats from
a Port Security Unit exercise to set up a
controlled access zone around the ship.
Within three hours, two of the crew are
dead and all those infected and/or contaminated
are being treated at the triage unit.
Interpreters have arrived and a story of the
smuggling of rare “blackened chickens”
from China to the ship’s last port of call
in Milwaukee is pieced together.
The Emergency Medical Service personnel evacuate
one of the infected crewmembers from the foreign vessel.
Planning meetings including all of the
agencies and units involved were held
months in advance. No matter what we
plan, there is nothing like handling this
number of casualties in a realistic situation
to iron out problems.
Is an occurrence like this a realistic possibility?
Yes, most certainly. Are we completely
prepared for such an occurrence? We will
never be fully prepared, but we are better
than we were, and all of the civilian
agencies and military units involved have
an increased appreciation of their counterparts’
capabilities in an emergency.
“Blackened Chicken” refers to an exotic
dish prepared from specially bred chickens
with black bones, meat and skin, and paradoxically
pure white feathers.
SLt Bill King was the exercise director
and the Unit Information Officer at
HMCS GRIFFON.