EARTHQUAKE / THE LONG ROAD BACK : O.C. Volunteers Get Chance to Fine-Tune Rescue Techniques

Just a few weeks ago, Al Arciniaga, a trauma technician at UCI Medical Center, watched a videotape of the devastation inside an Oakland hospital after that 1989 quake.

Soon, he would see the real thing.

When Arciniaga walked into Granada Hills Community Hospital Monday, “It was like deja vu. All the destruction I saw in that video had come true. There were X-rays piled on the floor four feet high and rooms were completely destroyed.”

Back at their hospital in Orange Tuesday afternoon, Arciniaga and other UCI medical personnel recalled how they spent 12 hours in Granada Hills helping the overwhelmed medical staff with earthquake victims, and working under some of the most adverse conditions of their careers: no electricity, no running water, a lack of medical supplies, and a fear that another quake could hit at any time.

“We have as extensive a disaster plan as anyone, but until you experience it, you don’t get to really test the system,” said UCI’s Dr. Mike Ritter. “The things that happened (at Granada Hills) pointed out the little things that we take for granted.”

More than two dozen emergency room physicians, nurses and medical technicians from UCI Medical Center joined about 200 local firefighters and other rescue workers from Orange County in the relief effort to help disaster-stricken Los Angeles.

Many said the experience tested their mettle and gave them a better idea of what to do should a similar disaster strike Orange County.

“It’s absolutely the best training,” said Orange County Fire Capt. Dan Young.

The Orange County Urban Search and Rescue Squad, which participated in a large-scale mock disaster drill at the Anaheim Plaza last year, had the opportunity to test their skills at the Northridge Fashion Center, where a parking structure and Bullock’s store nearly had been reduced to rubble.

“We had to search the mall to make sure no one was in there,” Young said. “Anyone who would have been inside of the store would have been killed. We didn’t know until 6 a.m. Tuesday that there was no one inside the mall.”

Young and others said their rescue efforts would have been difficult enough without the series of unnerving aftershocks.

“Half the time I was there, the ground was moving,” said UCI registered nurse Carerie Chapman. “It was scary. Horrifying. We worked with flashlights and limited supplies. But we all made do.

“It was very anxiety provoking. But, I’d be back there in a minute.”

Ritter said the hospital was not only without power and water, but also most of the medical supplies stored for a disaster had spilled onto the ground and become soaked with water.

But Ritter said there is nothing that prepares you for the horror of a disaster of such magnitude.

“We were working in a dark room with constant aftershocks and we had a lot of anxious people screaming,” Ritter said. “It’s hard to comfort them because you’re working so hard.”