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Local airport prepares for disaster

Almost 200 first responders and 32 agencies train in plane-crash drill

If a commercial plane crashed at the Durango-La Plata County Airport, local firefighters and law enforcement would be ready, but more first responders could aid the effort.

A full-scale disaster drill was held at the airport Thursday to prepare 32 local, state, and federal agencies to work together if a plane ever crashed right after takeoff.

Under sunny skies, the airport’s firefighters started by extinguishing small fires with trucks and then started rescuing 38 mock victims from an Air Force C-130 based in Albuquerque.

The victims, some covered in fake third-degree burns, were led from the plane and organized by the severity of their assigned injuries.

A retired police officer, Kevin McCarthy, waited patiently, with his arms covered in fake burns as the paramedics calmly organized the injured.

“We didn’t have to do this sort of thing back in the ’80s,” he said. But he saw it as an excellent exercise to prepare for real-world disasters.

Nearby, Dr. Tony DeMond watched the emergency as an official evaluator. He said more people would be needed to help monitor victims during a real crash.

“It will happen; we don’t know when. ... If you identify where your weaknesses are, now you are much better prepared,” said DeMond, who is the medical director for several county fire departments.

But DeMond also noted responsible management practice that will help families locate their loved ones after they are sent to a hospital. Each victim was given a bracelet with a series of barcodes printed on stickers to help the authorities track where victims are sent for care.

“We don’t want to be the ones who say we can’t find them,” he said.

Tony Vicari, incident commander for the drill, also highlighted the problem that caught DeMond’s eye.

“Our biggest challenge as a whole is just personnel. ... The airport isn’t a heavily staffed organization,” he said.

Early in the drill, the staff was noticeably thin, even to the casual bystander.

As time wore on, firefighters, paramedics and law enforcement from different departments joined the rescue effort in waves, as if they were coming from their stations.

It took about 1 hour and 20 minutes to assess and transport victims and about 2½ hours to complete the entire drill, Vicari said.

Once all the agencies arrived, there were more than 150 people dealing with mock havoc.

But Vicari said it was likely more people would be sent to the scene if it was real.

Communication among agencies, a chronic problem, was much improved, according to leaders from multiple department.

“If you don’t have good organization ... communication ends up going rogue,”said Hal Doughty, deputy chief with the Durango Fire Department.

The agencies also had some problems with their radio communications early-on, but they were corrected quickly, Doughty said.

The other slight hiccup in the exercise was a small real-life emergency, when a firefighter vomited. The whole drill paused for about 5 minutes.

The Federal Aviation Administration requires the airport to complete a large-scale training every three years, and this time it cost about $8,000 to complete.

Overall, Vicari saw it as a success because so many agencies interacted, including the Durango Police Department and the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office.

“I thought it was really well-done, well-balanced. ... I saw a lot of sweat coming off the incident commander’s brow,” said Durango Police Chief Jim Spratlen.

mshinn@durangoherald.com



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