MacMurray students prepare for disaster

By Cody Bozarth

The scene of a disaster is as chaotic as it is delicate, and when lives are at risk, first responders need to be ready to put their training to work and do so as quickly as possible.

On Saturday, MacMurray College students experienced this first hand, giving them some virtual experience in responding to disaster.

The foyer of the Putnam/Springer Center was staged after real-life tragedies, set as an elementary school cafeteria that has been damaged by a tornado while students were inside.

Volunteers from Scott County 4-H wore clothing to show various types of injuries, were arranged among overturned furniture and were given instruction on how to react.

MacMurray students of social work, psychology, criminal justice, homeland security and nursing were thrown in, and the halls filled with screams, crying and calls for help as they began to assess the situation.

Nursing student and drill coordinator Laura Wells said it was up to the students to know how to respond.

“They know that a tornado has struck a grade school, that there are multiple causalities, and they don’t know much more than that,” Wells said. “So they don’t know how many people are involved, they don’t know the extent of the injuries. They don’t know about resources, what’s available. The response to the disaster is a public outcry. Volunteers go to the scene and they call for the backup.”

There were 64 students participating, mostly seniors, who were given an overview of what their job might be in responding to disaster, depending on their field of study.

“We brought about five subject matter experts to facilitate discussion with the nursing department about their job duties and priorities during a disaster,” Wells said. “And other faculty have divided up in their particular groups, with psych, social, criminal justice, what their job is during a disaster scene, what their job is in certain situations.”

For example, criminal justice students were instructed to keep the scene secure while homeland security students set up an emergency operations center to allocate resources.

The disaster drill was organized by Georgine Berent, MacMurray associate professor, as an exercise for the nursing department, though for its first year, the victims were just toy animals.

“We had the social work and psychology departments last year, but we didn’t have the criminal justice and homeland security,” Berent said.

“So it keeps growing and it’s a good opportunity for education,” Wells added.