EMS and hospital personal rinse off H.M. King Health Science Technology student Christina Huerta during a chemical spill drill recently at CHRISTUS Spohn Hospital Kleberg. (Photo by Erika Hernandez) Eight H.M King Health Science Technology students participated in a mock chemical spill drill at CHRISTUS Spohn Hospital Kleberg recently.

The drill, which is conducted yearly, was part of a regional drill to better test the hospital and emergency response system.

The scenario prompting the drill was that a bus of students were driving south on Highway 77 from Corpus Christi when they suddenly drove through a cloud of chemical fog that contained hydrogen fluoride.

Students showed up to the hospital wheezing and complaining of burning on their skin and eyes and most had difficulty breathing.

Once the hospital staff realized the potential danger of the students contaminating the emergency room lobby area, the students were moved outside as a precaution and a code orange, meaning external disaster, was called.

H.M. King Health Science Technology student Mayra Barron is having her vitals checked on during a chemical spill drill recently at CHRISTUS Spohn Hospital Kleberg. (Photo by Erika Hernandez) While nurses and E.R. personnel accessed the patient’s needs, a command center was set up in the hospital boardroom with all necessary administrative heads present.

“Here at the command center we all have walkie talkies so that instructions can be delivered as quickly as possible between our people here and our responders outside, ”Norman McBride, CHRISTUS Spohn Hospital Kleberg Vice President and COO said.

Over dispatch, maintenance crews from the hospital began bringing out equipment such as HazMat suits and oxygen, which would be used to decontaminate the students before they could be taken into the hospital for treatment.

“In an actual emergency the hospital would be on lockdown with only one entrance and one exit,” John Besignano, Nurse Educator said. “In today’s exercise those precautions were not taken.”

A “labor pool” area was also set up to manage physicians and other hospital personnel’s schedules so that all areas of the hospital could be covered accordingly during the emergency.

Students were placed in a tent and were washed down with water by EMS responders and hospital personnel who were in the HazMat suits for protection.

Once they were cleared they were allowed into the emergency room area and were treated.

Their teacher, Mrs. Helen Small, said that the students were to mention different symptoms so that the staff could get practice on a variety of ailments.

Two of the students pretended to have respiratory failure and a heart attack and could not successfully be treated so they were marked as “expired” early on in the exercise.

After the students were treated, they were released and enjoyed a lunch provided by the hospital.

All administrative personnel had a debriefing after the exercise, where they were able to access and evaluate the hospital’s performance during the drill.

“There were a few things that ran kind of slow which we would like to improve on however overall everything ran pretty smoothly,” Besignano said.

Linda Powell, Marketing Department Rep., said exercises such as this are an essential part of keeping the hospital fresh on its procedures.

“This is a great learning experience for everyone who is involved in this exercise,” Powell said. “We live in an area that deals with chemicals everyday so we have to be prepared for anything that may happen.”