CARNDUFF — Motorists driving by Carnduff on April 26 would have seen an overturned bus, bodies littering the ground, and several emergency vehicles.
It was a staged exercise for the purpose of providing training for emergency responders working in Carnduff, Carievale, Gainsborough and Oxbow.
Randy Spencer, a Carnduff firefighter and training instructor, co-ordinated the mock accident. It was his desire to further train responders in the unlikely, unhoped-for possibility of a mass casualty incident. A school bus accident was easier to prepare for than a mass shooting or a plane crash.
For two weeks, he arranged all the details, keeping it as secret as he could. He enlisted 15 students aged seven to 17 as the "victims". They were "injured" to varying degrees – from minor injuries and trauma all the way to fatalities.
He notified the emergency responders that something would be taking place on April 26, but that was all the notice they were given. He wanted the exercise to be as much of a surprise as possible so that the workers couldn’t prepare for the specifics. He also informed businesses in the area of what was going on to prevent unnecessary alarm.
Then came the day of the accident. Twenty firefighters with their trucks arrived at the scene, along with eight EMTs with three ambulances, and two RCMP members with two vehicles. From the moment of the alert to ensuring that all needs had been attended to, only 77 minutes had passed. Some responders had to come from as far as 20 minutes away.
The accident was very realistic, including the rubberneckers who stopped by to take a few pictures.
Spencer, having planned the event, felt that it was best not to participate as a firefighter. Instead, he observed the whole exercise, and in a debriefing that took place when all was finished, took time to reinforce the good that had been done and pointed out things that perhaps could have been done better.
He also expressed that one is never fully prepared for this type of accident in real life, as there is no such thing as a cookie-cutter mass-casualty incident.
As the training instructor, Spencer felt “that the day went really good” He also added that he was “super proud of everyone”.
