Bioterrorism Drill Puts Crews to the Test

A bioterrorism drill Monday showed that Ventura County emergency response teams need to find a faster way to decontaminate victims and get more ambulances to the scene of a major disaster, county officials said.

It took about three hours to hose down and scrub 30 “victims” of a make-believe sarin gas attack during the training exercise held at a vacant building in Oxnard, said Ventura County Fire Capt. Mark Taillon.

That should occur faster to give victims a better shot at survival, Taillon said.

“People could be getting sicker while waiting for decontamination,” he said.

The exercise also pointed out potential problems in the county’s ability to safely transport large numbers of victims to area hospitals for treatment, Taillon said.

Officials to Work for Improvement

Police, fire and hospital officials will gather soon to critique Monday’s session and analyze how things can be improved, he said.

Ventura County Fire Department has staged similar drills since 1993, said spokeswoman Sandi Wells. Overall, the county’s public safety agencies are well-prepared to respond to bioterrorism, she said.

But the public is paying closer attention since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, she said.

“This is a continuation of what we always do--prepare for the worst,” she said.

More than 200 police, hospital workers and firefighters trained in hazardous-materials response took part in Monday’s exercise.

The “attack” involved terrorists releasing deadly sarin gas into the ventilation system of a fictitious Oxnard office. Sixty-four “victims” were immediately sickened and began streaming out of the building.

Sarin attacks the central nervous system and causes immediate symptoms, such as difficulty breathing, vomiting and dizziness. Terrorists released a form of sarin gas in the 1995 attack on a Tokyo subway that killed 12 and sickened thousands.

In Monday’s drill, three victims were considered to have died at the scene and 29 were critically ill.

Firefighters quickly separated them into groups depending on the severity of symptoms. Three people had already died and were left in the building. But the others were hosed down with water outside the building and then led to another decontamination site for a more thorough scrubbing with soap.

Even though they knew it was not real, the exercise was eye-opening for some of the victims. Angie Valdez, 24, who works as an emergency room nurse, volunteered because she wanted to see what it was like on the other side of a medical crisis.

“It was really scary not knowing what they were doing,” Valdez said. “People are just shouting out orders to you. And then you’re being stripped down for decontamination.”

For the exercise, the victims got to wear bathing suits. But in a real situation, the victims would be stripped bare to cleanse the body of chemicals. The showers are with cold water so that the skin’s pores stay closed to harmful chemicals.

Hospitals Participate for First Time

Supervisors from several agencies holding clipboards barked out suggestions as the exercise continued.

“Sheri, you need to change your gloves every 15 minutes,” one supervisor told a fire engineer who was helping victims scrub down.

After their showers, the victims were helped into synthetic white jumpsuits and ordered to await further instructions. Firefighters ordered victims who tried to drive to the hospital by themselves to stay on the scene.

That is for their own protection, Taillon said. In a real attack, the victims could become violently ill while driving and be unable to get help, he said.

Monday’s drill was the first that local hospitals took part in and the first to involve such a large number of victims, Taillon said. Participating hospitals included Ventura County Medical Center in Ventura, St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard and Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks.