The MCI Drill

Tis the season for the MCI Drill. The Mass Casualty Incident
(MCI) Drill is something we have every summer and winter at
McMurdo that basically freaks everyone out for the few days
beforehand. Although I'm sure it is taken seriously in the
summer, with a small population, everyone paticipates in the
winter and it takes on a larger role in the community. Each
person has a task related to a medical emergency that might
occur on station. This can be secondary medical attendants,
x-ray technicians, ambulance drivers, stretcher bearers, security
people and on and on. They then act out their role that they've
been trained to do and hopefully the victims survive long enough
to get Med-Evac'd to Christchurch, which can take over a week
during the winter because of weather, plane availability, etc.
During the Summer, planes are available all the time so timing's
not as big a deal. They can have a MCI during the summer though
if a fair amount of people were to get hurt at the same time.
I am a member of the EOC (Emergency Operations Center). The
command center of the whole operation if something were to happen.
I don't really have that important a job though. I take down
notes and build a time-frame of events that occur during the
operation. Someone yesterday asked if I was going to make coffee.
That almost caused me to enact my own Mass Casualty Incident on
their head...but I held back. So the whole drill went smoothly
and everyone congratulated each other on a job well done. It
seemed to go well. I hope we never have to use this training for
a real event.