Emergency Exercise by the Numbers

The post event wrap-up of our full-scale emergency exercise, we're pleased to say, is a positive one! On Saturday evening, 9/18 at 8 pm we we conducted our exercise as required by the Federal Aviation Administration. The exercise was executed by 108 emergency personnel from the community, 75 volunteer victims, and 40 airport and airline personnel.

The 108 emergency personnel included fire, police and EMS from York, Dauphin and Lancaster counties. These personnel joined forces with airport fire and police personnel to rescue 75 volunteer victims, 13 adult dummies and 2 infant dummies in a simulated plane crash on the east end of MDT's runway. The victims and dummies were assigned varying degrees of injury and had to be treated accordingly by the first responders.

The participating fire, police and EMS included 33 apparatus from Lower Swatara Township, Middletown, High Spire, the PA 193rd Air National Guard, Londonderry, Steelton, Swatara Township, Hershey, Union Deposit, Bainbridge, Fairview Township, DESSP, Life Lion, Hershey, Northwest, Manheim Township, and Community Life team. Other participating agencies were Emergency Health Service Foundation, American Red Cross, Dauphin County coroner, Dauphin County Communications and the PA 193rd Air National Guard Airfield Management Security Forces.

As you can see a LOT of time, effort and personnel went into exercise. In a matter of 90 minutes these combined community efforts provided scene safety, assessment, victim treatment, transport, fire fighting, and many other activities in an effort to build team skills in the event that an actual emergency incident would take place on the airport campus. These concerted efforts made this exercise a success!

MDT would like to extend a huge THANK YOU to all of the participating agencies, personnel and volunteers that helped make this exercise happen. We would also like to thank you, the community for staying up-to-date on the exercise as well!

You can read through our archive of live tweets during the exercise and also view photos of the exercise.