PITTSBURGH — Up to 30 actors helped Allegheny General Hospital simulate a mass casualty event Thursday morning.
The actors played victims of a massive boat crash due to a drunk driver.
“To have this kind of volume at one time is something that we have to expose people to. If we don’t expose them, we don’t always know what our reaction is going to be,” said Kathy Sikora, director of emergency services at Allegheny General Hospital.
Sikora said the hospital practices drills mimicking a mass shooting right before the NFL Draft. The hospital also simulated a mass chemical exposure, but never a boating accident.
Sikora said during this drill, the hospital used a transcription service.
“That transcription will all be downloaded so we will have a record, a really solid record of how this incident went, how the patient interactions went and how we perform, so it’s a massive, great evaluation tool,” Sikora said.
The hospital says this kind of valuable training is largely thanks to the actors who volunteer their time.
“We are extremely thankful for the actors that come,” Sikora said. “It does not do it a drill justice to have dummies. When you can have live victims who have a script, know how they’re going to be acting, but they’re going to be portraying, it makes all the difference in the world.”
For the actors like Shelley Borkovich, they said it’s all about giving back.
“ I think it’s super important not every day you have a mass disaster, so you know the training just to keep them, you know, and practice for when it does happen because you can never be too prepared,” Borkovich said.
The hospital says this is just one of four drills over the course of the year.
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