Mid Rivers Newsmagazine 6-21-17

10 I NEWS I
June 21, 2017
MID RIVERS NEWSMAGAZINE
@MIDRIVERSNEWS
MIDRIVERSNEWSMAGAZINE.COM
Realistic training prepares first responders for mass casualty event
By BRIAN FLINCHPAUGH
Even though only part of a training
exercise, it’s a scene no one wants to see
or experience. The question is what to do
when, and if, it happens.
The “victims” are scattered around a
school bus parking lot with obvious signs
of injury – the aftermath of a fictional bus
crash. The victims actually are mannequins
or special volunteers decked out with
bandages and fake blood stains, as school
districts can be squeamish about students
participating in graphic play-acting.
But it’s a scene that has played out for
real in the past, most recently involving
a Parkway School District bus crash on
Interstate 44 this May involving 13 students.
Authorities are increasingly worried
about a wide range of potential incidents
that could prompt mass casualties. How
well emergency responders – firefighters
and ambulance district paramedics, in this
case – react dictates how many people get
prompt treatment and survive.
And that response requires training, finetuning
and practice – something the St.
Charles County Ambulance District has
delved into deeply over the last several
months.
The exercise was one of six mass
casualty incident training exercises that
occurred in May, involving about 500
emergency responders and held at a former
bus parking area at the Wentzville School
District administration center. Ambulance
district officials expect to conduct similar
exercises elsewhere in the county this year.
Rick Lane, training officer for the ambulance
district, said they’ve
been doing these exercises
independently for over a
decade.
According to Kyle Gaines,
the district’s community
relations director, the news
of the day factors into their
planning.
Scenarios can include
shooting incidents, chemical
leaks, fires, earthquakes,
a terrorist attack or the
aftermath of a tornado. It’s
important that the training
both be realistic and depict
situations that have happened and could
happen again. “If I have any reasonable
involvement and engagement, I’ve got
to make it plausible,” Lane said, explaining
that an exercise involving spaceships
coming down from Mars doesn’t count.
The key to responding to a mass casualty
incident is adjusting emergency personnel’s
everyday
response.
“It’s such a different
response
demand for the
paramedics than their typical call,” Lane
said. “We’re asking the first responder to
react to a situation where there are more
patients than there are resources. And it
changes everything when it happens.”
Mass casualty incidents can vary. Obviously,
a large number of people hurt is a
mass casualty incident, but even eight to
St. Charles County Ambulance District conduct training exercises in
Wentzville in May.
[Photos courtesy of SCCAD]
10 patients can tax immediate responder
resources, Lane said. “It’s anytime the
patients exceed the resources available on
the scene,” he said.
Lane said paramedics have to become
managers at the scene and “do the most
good for the largest number of patients in
the shortest period of time.”
Paramedics faced with large number of
hurt people have to ration their resources
and conduct what’s called triage – sorting
See CASUALTY, page 31
Drug, alcohol treatment center legislation gets first reading, no action from County Council
By BRIAN FLINCHPAUGH
The St. Charles County Council may
decide soon whether to allow an inpatient
treatment center for drug and alcohol
abuse patients on an 11.53-acre unincorporated
tract near the Rte. 364/Arena Parkway
interchange, not far from the Missouri
River.
The council gave first readings at their
June 12 meeting to two bills – one for a
rezoning to single-family residential with
floodway fringe and floodway overlay districts,
and the other for a conditional use
permit to allow a convalescent home institution.
The bills are sought by Harris House, a
longtime treatment provider with locations
in South St. Louis and Chesterfield.
Harris House, a not-for-profit corporation,
offers inpatient and outpatient
treatment as well as transitional housing
programs for people struggling with alcohol
and drugs.
The $11 to $12 million center would
be on the south side of South River Road,
about 400 feet east of Arena Parkway. The
center would be housed in a 44,000-squarefoot,
two-story building, with space for up
to 60 treatment beds and 40 employees.
The facility would not have a view of the
nearby Katy Trail and would have a 101-
space parking lot.
The new facility will be designed to
provide inpatient treatment and detox program
for adults age 18 and older requiring
a 28-day maximum stay, and will be in
competition with other private and not-forprofit
treatment programs.
Harris House officials met with the
council at their April 10 work session to
brief them on their plans. Harris House
had a contract on two tracts of land that
would be combined to form one tract along
Arena Parkway. At that time, agency officials
mentioned that they held a “meet and
greet” earlier this year with local residents
to outline their plans.
The rezoning and conditional use permit
requests were submitted to the county planning
and zoning commission, which recommended
their approval at their May 17
meeting. The council took no final action
on the requests at their June 12 meeting.
The council’s next scheduled meeting is
June 26.
The treatment center proposal drew both
protests and support from area residents
during a public comment portion of the
council meeting.
Carol Pitzer, who lives along South
River Road, said she had nothing against
Harris House but the influx of traffic and
people could take away much of what
makes the area attractive. “It’s very country,”
she said.
An influx of people also might heighten
concerns about security and the impact
of the center on property values, she said,
adding that she would have to lock doors
and windows at her home.
“I don’t understand why this has to
happen in a neighborhood when there [are]
so many other places they can go instead
of a private rural neighborhood,” she said.
Angela Wheelehan, a teacher in the Francis
Howell School District, said the area
needs a treatment center, particularly with
the growing heroin epidemic in the area.
She said she struggled to find a place
where her 22-year-old son could receive
treatment, until she found Harris House.
But the treatment required long commutes
to St. Louis. People have told her
they wished there were other places in the
area.
“Property values are important to me. I
pay taxes,” Wheelehan said. “But I also
think human life is as well.”
Clients in the Harris House inpatient
program cannot leave the facility without
an escort. Clients also don’t have private
vehicles at the facility; they often are
picked up or dropped off.
The facility will not be a halfway house,
nor a mental health facility or a methadone
clinic, although methadone patients will be
treated, agency officials said. Clients will
be screened and must have no violent history,
suicide inclinations and criminal history
other than substance-related offenses
such as a DUI.
Agency officials said the facility will not
have a negative effect on local property
values. The property also is on a bluff area
and not prone to flooding from the nearby
Missouri River.
Meanwhile, County Executive Steve
Ehlmann said, as he did at the April work
session, that he was recusing himself from
the issue because a relative is involved
with nearby property.