Johnson County Emergency Services District No. 1 EMS educators Loren Bennett and Dow Winkler spent Thursday morning constructing shelving and a desk area for the organization’s new mass casualty trailer.
“One of these trailers fully stocked costs about $50,000,” Bennett said. “We’ve been able to do this for significantly less than that, and this is just a start. We plan to add more to it each year.”
The trailer, which Bennett and JCESD Executive Director Mike Johnston said should be in service by June, will be available to respond anywhere in Johnson County.
“We also have mutual aid contracts with other areas,” Bennett said. “So if it was needed in say, Somervell County, we would go there.”
The trailer will respond to mass casualty incidents whenever county fire departments need extra help, Bennett said.
“Would be something like a bus rollover or situation where you have multiple patients and injuries,” Bennett said. “The tornadoes that went through the Rio Vista area a couple of years ago would be an example of where we could have used this.”
Such examples range from large scale emergency situations to smaller scale situations.
“A mass casualty is actually defined as a situation involving five or more patients,” Johnston said.
The JCESD trailer has the capability to attend to 35 patients, Bennett said. The trailer is equipped with 35 backboards and C-collars as well as a generator and portable spotlights. Plans call for installing the shelving and cabinets to hold supplies and provide a desk area from which rescue workers will operate a command post during rescue operations.
“We’ll probably put an erase board here,” Bennett said, pointing out the intended spot. “That’s for keeping track of where everyone is and what they’re doing.”
Tents of different colors will be stored in the trailer and used to set up portable triage centers, Bennett said, much like the triage systems developed in Vietnam. The different colors are to place victims where they need to be based on the severity of their injuries.
A $2,500 donation a couple of years ago helped purchase the trailer, Johnston said. JCESD board members have since budgeted funds for materials, equipment and the lettering on the trailer, he said.
“Right now we’re putting it together,” Johnston said. “We’re going to get the board members to look at it during tonight’s meeting and hope to have it ready to go by June.”
Bennett said he and Winkler also teach triage training classes.
“We’ve been teaching those, but we’re going to get a little more in depth,” Bennett said.
In addition to teaching at JCESD, Bennett works as a firefighter in Grand Prairie while Winkler is a firefighter in Arlington. Both grew up in Johnson County and previously worked for county departments.
The casualty trailer is something that the county’s medical director, Dr. Michelle Beeson, has wanted a long time, Johnston said, and something firefighters throughout the county believe will be an asset.
Firefighters at the various departments throughout the county are also excited about JCESD’s swift water rescue program, which is also in the works, Johnston said.
JCESD budgeted for and purchased equipment for the program and is taking applications from county firefighters who want to be part of the team and get in on the training.
Johnston also mentions the Grandview Volunteer Fire Department’s heavy rescue truck, recently purchased and put in service by that department. GVVFD purchased the truck, but JCESD donated funding to help outfit it.
