Mass Casualty Exercise – U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys, South Korea – 2 November 2011
Image by USAG-Humphreys
Click here to learn more
By Han, Jae-ho
U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys Public Affairs
CAMP HUMPHREYS – A 25-passenger bus crashed into a bus stop, hitting a bystander who broke his back, paralyzing him from the waist down. The bus driver had suffered a heart attack, causing him to lose control of the bus, and the passengers suffered various injuries.
With the bus on fire and completely covered with smoke, and the possibility that the bus could explode at any minute, the U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys Fire Department arrived to extinguish the fire and rescue the victims. While the firemen tended to the bus, local medical personnel performed first aid with the victims, and then transported them to the Osan Air Base Hospital, Good Morning Hospital and Dankook Hospital.
This was all a part of the scenario of the USAG Humphreys’ garrison-wide mass casualty exercise, here Nov. 3.
“A 25-passenger bus crashes with casualties on board, and it instantly becomes a MASCAL medical situation,” said Dathan Black, the Humphreys Fire Department training chief. “This exercise is important because history has proven that we need to prepare for catastrophic events involving many people. We are exercising our capability to handle multiple patients and get them to medical attention in a hurry.”
The exercise casualties looked realistic thanks to the moulage work of Ashley Robles, an Army spouse who teaches classes at the Arts and Crafts Center inside the Community Activity Center. She applied wound makeup on the casualties to make their injuries look more realistic. Robles studied this art under Hollywood special effects makeup artist veterans such as Jerry Gergely (Babylon 5, Dawn of the Dead, Creep Show); Will Ritter (Pirates of the Caribbean); and Dorian Clevenger, a famous air brush artist.
Later in the day, a second exercise scenario featured an evacuation involving Humphreys American School and the Child Development Center, with more than 500 children participating.
“This school evacuation exercise is a part of the annual requirement to practice mass evacuation for safety purposes,” said Randall S. Pryor, an anti-terrorism officer for the USAG Humphreys Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security. “It could be any natural disaster, such as tornadoes or terrorist attacks, which trigger this mass evacuation situation. In this exercise, all objectives were met and the evacuation plan was exercised. All kids were accounted for at the end and no one got hurt, making this a successful exercise.”
U.S. Army photos by PFC Han, Jae Ho
Cleared for public release