Lot: a major ‘SMV’ operation

This was a large-scale ‘Mass Casualty Incident (MCI)’ exercise which took place on Thursday 5 October at the Viroulou site near Gramat, around fifty firefighters from the Gourdon Territorial Fire and Rescue Unit, as well as around fifteen ‘stunt victims’. It must be said that Captain Mickaël Desbruères, Head of the Gourdon UTIS and in charge of the exercise, and his deputy, Lieutenant Jack De Sousa, the organiser, had devised a scenario that was, to say the least, catastrophic… Kept secret from those involved, they devised a scenario involving a protest by opponents of a project that would quickly spiral out of control. Indeed, at around 7 pm, the angry demonstrators set fire to a vehicle; then, a runaway car ploughed into the crowd, striking numerous demonstrators before coming to a halt, embedded in an electricity pole, whilst attempting to flee. The first emergency services deployed to tackle the car fire soon realised that, a few hundred metres away, several victims of the runaway vehicle needed help and that the vehicle’s occupants were in a serious condition. The operation rapidly escalated with the involvement of the chain of command and resources scaled to deal simultaneously with the fire, the casualties on the ground and the road accident victims. A Column Command Post (CCP) is set up on site to coordinate material and human resources. Faced with a situation involving multiple casualties (around fifteen in total), an inflatable modular structure is erected on site to serve as a Casualty Assembly Point (PRV). Each casualty, who has been made up in advance to lend greater realism to the exercise, carries a form detailing their injuries and vital signs.  They are triaged and treated in order of priority, and emergency crews flock to the VRP so that the team of nurses can attend to the most serious cases and arrange for their evacuation to hospitals. By mid-evening, the final toll reported by the command centre was one fatality and 14 people injured to varying degrees. This exercise proved satisfactory to both the organisers and the participants, given the variety of tasks included in the scenario. It involved around twenty vehicles and some fifty firefighters from the fire and rescue centres in Les Quatre Routes, Cahors, Cazals, Gourdon, Gramat, Labastide-Murat, Martel, Salviac, Souillac, Figeac and Vayrac-Bétaille, to which should be added around fifteen ‘victims’ (including several members of the Lot Youth Fire Brigade). Lot Fire Service Communications Unit Photo credit: © François Gomez – Les Pompiers du Lot