It’s still unclear what caused yesterday’s rash of illness at David L. Miss Criminal Justice Center, which affected a few adults as well as elementary school students on a field trip.
At final count, EMSA transported 30 children and 8 adults to the hospital. EMSA reports all have made a full recovery.
EMSA filed operations supervisor Michael Garrison says while every disaster is a learning experience, emergency response was a success.
“I think initially every incident’s overwhelming,” he said, so a few things that responders might improve on for next time would be “just trying to secure things maybe a little bit better, trying to get everyone maybe a little bit closer together.”
Garrison credits the success of the emergency response to the extensive training in large-scale disaster that responders must undergo.
“I think the mass chaos that happens with the patients would have been felt by us too,” he said. “Without being able to know the system, and work down that system, it wouldn’t even be possible to manage a disaster that size.”
“It couldn’t have gone as smoothly as it did,” said EMSA Public Information Officer Chris Stevens, “without the joint training that we do with the Police Department, Tulsa County sheriff’s, the Fire Department.”
Garrison says employees train through scheduled drills and classes, and by treating smaller-scale events, such as multiple injury car accidents, as opportunities for training as well.