NORFOLK, Va. - More than 100 doctors, nurses and more spent the day at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital on Saturday, training for incidents that produce a high number of patients.
The hospital's first full-scale joint mass casualty exercise in four years saw Sentara partner with multiple local EMS services and Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters.
"A mass casualty event is any event where the number of victims are going to overwhelm the resources of that receiving hospital," said Patti Montes, Director of System Emergency Management for Sentara Healthcare.
Montes watched closely as volunteer patients with prosthetic injuries arrived in ambulances one after another and were evaluated in the Emergency Department before being sent to another area of the hospital for hypothetical surgeries and other forms of treatment.
“We need to practice this on a regular basis so that we can respond properly," said Montes. "[The scenario] is an influx of about 50 patients from an active shooter event at Town Point Park.”
The situation was inspired by the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas where dozens were killed and hundreds injured. But the hospital also took lessons learned from tragedies closer to home; the mass shooting at a Chesapeake Walmart in November and the Virginia Beach Municipal Shooting, the fourth anniversary of which is coming up on May 31.
“I participated in 5/31 response and we had the lessons that we learned there that we are applying here today," Montes told News 3.
And that experience, she says, is especially important for staff members who arrived since the Virginia Beach incident.
After the exercise at Sentara, Montes says the results will be shared with other hospitals so they can train as effectively as possible and be ready for the worst scenarios.
