It takes hundreds of volunteers and more than a dozen hospitals to pull off the annual Central Ohio Trauma System (COTS) full-scale emergency preparedness exercise.
On April 11, 2018, nearly 400 volunteers from across Ohio and more than a dozen staff from different agencies took over the Grove City Church of Nazarene to prepare for the exercise. This year’s exercise was a severe weather scenario where hundreds of people were injured. The volunteers had makeup applied to mimic injuries that can occur from a tornado or other severe storms so hospital staff could treat those “injuries”. Once the “victims” were in full makeup, they were transported to local hospitals where Emergency Room staff triaged and treated them.
These annual exercises wouldn’t be possible without the volunteers, the hospitals and the following agencies:
Franklin County Public Health (FCPH)
Columbus Public Health (CPH)
Franklin County & Columbus Medical Reserve Corps (MRC)
Central Ohio Trauma System (COTS)
Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA)
Thank you to everyone for helping make this year’s exercise a successful one. Below is a collection of media coverage from the exercise.
Central Ohio Trauma System prepares for patients in weather disaster (10TV)
Medical professionals practice preparedness for natural disaster (NBC4)
Franklin Co. hospitals practice tornado disaster drill (NBC4)
Local hospitals practice response to a major disaster (ABC6)