Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

A flu epidemic drilling

By LISA GREENE
Published April 19, 2006

TAMPA - It's the disaster scenario atop the most-feared list these days: a worldwide flu epidemic.

More than 20 local, state and federal agencies joined together in Tampa Wednesday for what federal officials called the largest drill ever in the United States to figure out what to do if it hit here.

The Florida State Fairgrounds would become a makeshift field hospital, a way to treat the thousands of people who would need help even though local hospitals would already be overflowing.

Wednesday's drill marked the first time emergency workers have set up such a center. Federal health and homeland security officials watched the event from live video feeds because they wanted to see the site in action.

Hundreds of Armwood High School students played flu victims, given lists of pretend symptoms from high fevers and coughing to vomiting or chest pains.

A worldwide epidemic of a new strain of influenza could kill millions around the world. Health officials are especially worried about the threat from a virulent strain of bird flu that is spreading across the globe. But so far, bird flu has spread only from infected birds to people, not from person to person. Scientists don't know if or when the virus will gain that ability, which would set the stage for a pandemic.

To be better prepared if that ever happens was the goal of Wednesday's drill in Hillsborough County. The county has some type of emergency drill each year, but this one presented different challenges.

"A pandemic is different because we'll have fewer resources," said Maurice Brazil, acting commander of the regional Disaster Medical Assistance Team, a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. "We'll have 30 percent down from our own group."

That's because that many emergency workers could be expected to get sick themselves. Emergency staff Wednesday wore surgical masks and rubber gloves, just as they would in a real pandemic to ward off infection.

Pandemic flu would differ in other ways as well. More people would be affected than by most other disaster scenarios, such as a hurricane or terrorist bomb. And the threat wouldn't be over within hours or even days. Waves of thousands of sick people would keep coming for weeks or months.

On Wednesday, arriving students were given index cards describing their symptoms, ages and health conditions. They were ushered into a tent, where an emergency worker checked their symptoms, filled out a clipboard, and attached a bracelet to their wrists, color-coded by severity.

With a 104-degree fever and trouble breathing, 15-year-old Monique Jolly got a green bracelet and her clipboard and was ushered to the next tent, for patients with more severe symptoms. She lay down on a high folding stretcher. Within a few moments, Dr. Sangar Galwankar, a Tampa General Hospital emergency physician, was examining her.

Galwankar dispensed his standard flu medicine: fake Tylenol, fake intravenous fluids, fake oxygen. Jolly fought back a real giggle.

For the day, Jolly was a diabetic, so her blood sugar was checked. Soon, she was stabilized and sent to an area set up with a long line of cots, to be observed before she returns home.

Alicia Baker wasn't so lucky. Baker, 15, became a 55-year-old with a failing heart. She needed to go the hospital. But workers were having trouble finding a hospital with an empty bed.

Galwankar has worked disasters before, earthquakes and floods, in India. This time, there are fewer surgical cases, and more medical ones.

In the corner of the building, an area was boxed off with crates. Behind them, black body bags were spread on rubber mats, a toe tag casually dropped atop each one.

Father Jack Hyde, a chaplain with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was managing the morgue. In a real pandemic, identifying patients and finding their families would be harder than usual, he said.

On Wednesday, his hardest job was dealing with the demands of the five "dead" students They were asking for doughnuts.

As the drill went on, many of the most critical "patients," like Baker, had other medical problems. One had HIV, while another was six months pregnant. Sophomore Janeen Ibrahim aged from 15 to 72. An emergency worker was posted by her cot, because she had dementia and was prone to wander, even with flu.

Ibrahim said she's worried about bird flu.

"I heard we're going to get hit with it, and there are no vaccines, and we'll just have to deal with it," she said.

That made her ready to participate in Wednesday's drill.

"This is going to make them more prepared," she said. "And help make the people who actually are going to be sick better."

[Last modified April 19, 2006, 19:46:02]