After the Pulse nightclub shooting, Orlando Regional Medical Center sprang into action to help the 44 victims that came through its doors.
But if a mass casualty situation happened in Tampa Bay, would Tampa General Hospital, the level one trauma center for West Central Florida, be prepared?
- Tampa General Hospital is the Tampa Bay area's level one trama center
- TGH runs annual drills to simulate different types of mass casualty situations
“We would get notified by EMS that there is a mass casualty situation," said Dr. David Ciesla, the Regional Trauma Director for Tampa General Hospital and USF Health. "We would alert our on-call faculty, so we have in-house trauma surgeons, fellows and residents who are here, and if it sounded like it was a big incident then they would call in the back up, and we would go down a call list and mobilize as much resources as we needed."
With extra staff and resources on hand, the hospital would start triaging.
"You shift gears from trying to do the most for one person or any individual to be doing the most good for the most amount of people, and a lot of times you’ll have to ration resources,” Ciesla said.
To make sure the hospital is prepared, Tampa General Hospital participates in annual drills where it reenacts different types of mass casualty situations. The hospital uses volunteers to pose as patients.
“We will practice getting them in, doing primary and secondary surveys, getting them registered, getting them through the ER and the system,” Ciesla said.