Welcome to Kenmare

Feature Stories (Vol. 109 No. 13--3/28/2007)

"Accident" was a drill

By Caroline Downs

Sirens shattered the peaceful atmosphere in Kenmare Sunday afternoon when the volunteer ambulance and fire departments responded to a vehicle crash and anhydrous spill 2 1/2 miles west of town on Ward County 2.

The call came at approximately 2:15 pm to the Kenmare Police Department, who then contacted the Kenmare Ambulance Service, the Kenmare Fire Department and Bowbells Rescue.

Fortunately, the "accident" was an emergency training drill planned by members of the fire and ambulance departments in cooperation with Kenmare Community Hospital.

Most of the responders were not initially aware the incident was staged, and they used the multi-casualty accident scenario to test their training. Police chief Gerry Helmers and officer Curt Olson secured the accident site, so the fire department contained the anhydrous spill.

Only then were the ambulances allowed through, where they found a van upright in the south ditch and a car laying on its roof in the north ditch. Seven victims with various injuries were at the scene, including at least one person ejected from each vehicle.

The ambulance crews went to work immediately, assisted by firefighters who held victims or carried equipment. Bowbells Rescue arrived by 2:45 pm, followed closely by the Burke County Trauma unit. Members of that crew used their "jaws of life" tools to pry the door from the overturned car in order to extricate the final passenger.

In the meantime, the ambulances raced back to town with their first load of passengers to the makeshift "hospital" at the ambulance garage, where Bev Heninger and Shawn Smothers waited. The ambulances couldn’t return to the accident scene until 3:10 pm, however, because a train blocked the tracks west of town. By then, a second group of victims was prepared for transportation, and by 3:17 pm both ambulances were gone again.

The situation became more complicated as two firefighters went down while searching for potential accident victims. Both men had to be located before they could be evaluated and moved from the coulee. By 3:28 pm, the ambulances returned for their third run.

East- and westbound drivers were stopped on the road as Chief Helmers and firefighter Mitch Duerre worked traffic control on both sides of the accident and communicated to each other and the firefighters by radio. Shortly after 3:30 pm, all victims were removed from the site.

All the responders met back at the Kenmare Ambulance hall to review the event. Steve Grubb, training officer for the ambulance service and one of the drill’s coordinators, was pleased with what he observed. "The cooperation was really good, as far as working with the fire department, the police and Bowbells Rescue," he said. "We were focusing on a mass casualty type of event that overtaxes our system."

He said the drill’s planning committee decided to involve only local responders in the training. In the event such an accident actually occurred, Grubb said the North Dakota Highway Patrol, the Bowbells Ambulance and the Tolley Ambulance would also be contacted, as well as the life-flight helicopter based at Trinity Hospital in Minot.

Like Grubb, Kenmare Ambulance president Becky Nelson was happy with the outcome of the joint training. "Those firemen each grabbed a patient and stuck with their patients," she said. "I would take any one of those firemen on our squad at any time!"

She noted a couple of problems the drill revealed, including the train crossing and the fact the ambulances left the scene with equipment still needed at the site when they made their first run to town. "That’s what we learn from," she said. "And, for the amount of patients we had, we found out we had enough equipment on board."

Neither department had conducted an emergency training drill for at least five years, so Ron Jensen, training coordinator for the fire department, was pleased when he and Grubb had the opportunity to prepare Sunday’s event. "Once they found out it was a drill, everybody still treated it as if it were real," Jensen said. "How well everybody does their job surprised me. I liked to see the departments working together."

Jensen, Grubb and Nelson worked with planning committee members Trevor Melin, Jason Bruner, Mitch Duerre, Jon Michalenko and Nate Condit, all relatively new members of the Kenmare Fire Department, and Bev Heninger, Tim Mickelsen and Randy Edwards of Kenmare Community Hospital to develop the training drill.

Melin volunteers for both the fire and ambulance crews. "To get hands-on experience is the biggest thing," he said. "I’m pretty new to both departments so I haven’t done a lot of this."

Although he helped plan the drill, Bruner was caught off-guard when he was directed to drive one of the ambulances in order to leave enough medical responders at the accident scene. "My adrenaline was going," he said.

Duerre also found himself in unfamiliar territory when he was told to manage traffic and work the radio. "I’ve never been on the radio," he said. "But it was good, getting everybody to work together and getting the communications down."

Michalenko was impressed with the cooperation he saw during the drill. "No one decided their department was more vital than another," he said. "When a Bowbells firefighter went down, there were two Kenmare firefighters right there helping."

Volunteers who performed the role of accident victims included Halie Nelson, Katie Nelson, McKinzie Jensen, Marissa Jensen, Kerstin Grubb, Shane Heidel and Matthew Neuenfeld.

Fire chief Cameron Bartuska coordinated efforts among the crews at the scene of the incident. "It was good to have a committee to set it up," he said. "They covered all the bases. There were some surprises. I didn’t know we were going to have a couple firemen go down!"

Volunteers who participated in the drill completed a feedback survey at the ambulance hall, and indicated they wanted to continue doing similar emergency drills and to keep the element of surprise when possible.

Bartuska also supported the idea of more cooperative emergency drills. "Any training we can do is terrific," he said. "The more we can do, the better."