photo by Hannah Reel

Corrections Corporation of America correctional officer trainees acting as inmates load the bus as they prepare to start the emergency simulation drill at Providence Park Wednesday morning.

Emergency drill tests real life skills

By Emily Ham (Contact) | The Natchez Democrat

Published Thursday, October 29, 2009

NATCHEZ — It’s not every day emergency workers and law enforcement agents get to play make believe, but Wednesday’s emergency simulation drill at Providence Park was an exception.

However, unlike the group of people who participated in the Adams County Correctional Facility’s disaster scenario, most make believers don’t have access to fire trucks, ambulances and buses.

Members of city, county and state law enforcement agencies were partnered by the Corrections Corporation of America and American Medical Response to simulate a two-bus accident that would injure inmates and regular citizens, alike.

“You try to play as real as you can,” Natchez Police Capt. Tom McGehee said.

In the course of an hour and 25 minutes, 33 CCA correctional officer class volunteers were taken to Natchez Community Hospital and Natchez Regional Medical Center as part of a drill that is used to tax the resources of hospitals and local law enforcement.

The 9 a.m. drill was scheduled to fill the annual emergency simulation requirement both Natchez hospitals and CCA officers must complete as part of their yearly training.

CCA Warden Vance Laughlin watched the events of the morning unfold as two ambulances, two fire trucks and 12 members of CCA’s Special Operations Response Team showed up within minutes of announcing the “wreck.”

“I’ve already seen several things we’ve done wrong, but that’s why we do these things to begin with,” Laughlin said.

Laughlin said officers unloaded the convict bus before proper security — the SORT team — showed up, and present CCA officers allowed it to happen.

“This has been a learning experience for everybody,” Stan Owens, director of Adams County emergency management said.

“They’ve seen quite a few glitches, but nothing that can’t be fixed.

“That’s why we practice — to find these glitches and fix them,” Owens said.

AMR Operations Manager Tim Houghton said many valuable lessons came from the morning’s events.

“The prison was able to identify some policies (they’ve never had to use before) and see how they worked in a real-life situation,” Houghton said.

AMR Assistant Operations Supervisor David Clifton said it took 13 round-trip ambulance transports to relocate the pretend inmates and church members to both hospitals.

Hospitals’ emergency rooms made accommodations for the influx of patients starting from the first call that was sent out by AMR at 9:30 a.m.

“Today, we activated our internal emergency operations plan,” Natchez Community Hospital Chief Nursing Officer Esther Mingee said. “The communication between AMR and the Adams County Correctional Facility with our hospital was seamless.”

Natchez Regional Medical Center also implemented its emergency management plan in preparation for the arrival of half of the “accident victims.”

“We sent a representative to the accident scene to be our liaison for the command center setup at the site, and we had good communication between our hospital and the command center,” NRMC Senior Vice President and Chief Operations Officer Lana Morgan said.

“Our employees did an excellent job of responding to their designated assignments, and it was truly a team effort.”

Heads of each department represented at the drill are scheduled to meet on Nov. 10 to discuss the strengths and weaknesses uncovered during Wednesday’s exercise.