Texas Children’s Department of Emergency Management conducted a full-scale mass casualty incident exercise on October 7, which included nearly 150 Texas Children’s staff and employees and about 150 members of the Houston Police Department, Harris County Sheriff’s Office and Federal Bureau of Investigation Houston Division SWAT teams, Houston Fire Department Emergency Medical Services and 400 students and staff at Michael E. DeBakey High School for Health Professions.
The exercise involved mock shootings, an improvised explosive device and a hostage situation at DeBakey High School. Many of the shooting victims were then brought to Texas Children’s Hospital Emergency Center. The intent was to help assess the organization’s mass casualty incident plan, emergency communications, incident command structure and patient flow.
“I think Texas Children’s did a fantastic job during this drill,” said Texas Children’s Executive Vice President Mark Mullarkey. “We saw it as an opportunity to learn and identify our gaps. Our ability to be critical of ourselves afterward is only going to make us improve as we move forward and be better prepared to serve the community.”
This was the first time Texas Children’s executed an emergency exercise of this scale and scope with external and internal participants. Having multiple agencies involved and simulating a mass casualty incident as realistically as possible helped our teams identify what went well with the exercise and what areas needed improvement.
“One thing we learned from this drill is that our response needs to be the same, regardless of what the incident is,” said Executive Vice President John Nickens. “We can always lower our intensity, but we should respond the same and be prepared. We are fortunate at Texas Children’s to have the resources and talent to do it.”
