Health facility credits CDP for successful incident response

Training provided by FEMA’s Center for Domestic Preparedness is being credited with the successful response to a school bus accident earlier this fall by the Chinle Comprehensive Health Facility in Chinle, Arizona.

The facility assessed and treated 15 children and the driver of the bus, providing one-on-one attention to each victim and ‘escorting them through the entire triage, registration and treatment process.’

“Nearly half of the staff who actively participated in the response had attended advanced training at the CDP,” including training about the Incident Command System and mass casualty response, according to a narrative report about the event.

The staff used “the knowledge and skills” they learned at the CDP “… to respond effectively to the difficult and complicated incident,” the report added.

In a previous article about the facility, Emergency Management Specialist Owen Le Beau said more than 300 staff members of his organization are graduates of one or more, mostly medical- or healthcare-related, CDP courses.

The training has “enhanced our confidence” that we can adequately care for the approximately 32,000 people in our service area in any health-related emergency, he said.