Sirens will sound on two Northeast Georgia college campuses over the next several days, but don’t let them alarm you. Piedmont College and Truett McConnell University will be holding mock disaster drills.
Piedmont’s drill is set for Wednesday, March 24 in Demorest. Truett McConnell will hold its drill on March 31 in Cleveland. Both will involve large numbers of students and first responders. Both will be within public view. The Piedmont disaster drill will take place around the Swanson Performing Arts Center in Demorest. Truett’s will be on the main campus lawn in plain sight of passersby on Highway 115.
The Piedmont drill will focus on a simulated tornado and fire while Truett’s will center around an “intentional mass casualty incident.”
The colleges run these drills annually to provide real-world training for their nursing students and local emergency personnel. The drills also give the colleges a chance to run through their disaster preparedness plans.
Multiple agencies will be involved in the drills. Helping Piedmont will be Demorest Fire and Police, Habersham County Emergency Services and medical center, the sheriff’s office, E-911, Emergency Management, Habersham Search and Rescue, District Two Public Health, and GEMA/Homeland Security. Their counterparts in White County will take part in the mass casualty emergency drill there.
Northeast Georgia Health System Trauma and Acute Care Services will participate for the first time this year. NGHS plans to bring trauma nurses, resident physicians, and a simulation bus with mobile hospital rooms to Demorest. There will be a helicopter, drones, and rescue dogs.
“We want to make it a very realistic event so that it will be beneficial for all of the agencies involved,” explains Greilich.
NGHS will also be involved with the TMU drill which is intended to help students learn how to provide an immediate response to treating a variety of medical conditions.
“This drill will allow our students to respond to extreme situations while practicing their clinical skills,” says Assistant Professor C. Leigh Ammons of Truett’s Martha Rielin and Elizabeth Salmen School of Nursing.
While the drills are aimed at teaching nursing students how to respond to mass casualty events, the exercises will benefit other students as well. Piedmont theater students will assist with makeup and pyrotechnics. Communications students will simulate a press conference.
In all, more than 400 students and volunteers are expected to participate in Piedmont’s drill, while several hundred more could be involved in the drill at Truett.
