First responders conduct mass rescue drill on Tennessee River
HARDIN COUNTY, Tenn. — Many first responders gathered at the main boat ramp at Pickwick Landing State Park to participate in a rescue drill.
This particular drill was a simulation of a cruise ship accident on the Tennessee River. Hardin County’s Fire Chief, Melvin Martin, explains more.
“Today we are having a tri-state mutual aid drill in conjunction with the Coast Guard,” Martin said. “Local agencies from Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee are here. It’s a simulated accident of one of the cruise ships, cruise boats on the Tennessee River.”
The drill consisted of a large number of “victims” in the water. Various crews would go out and retrieve the victims and bring them into care.
“The scenario is that we have about 160 victims in the water,” said Martin. “So the rescue boats are going out, collecting them, bringing them back, we’re doing triage, finding out what type of injuries they have so that we can send them to the appropriate hospitals.”
The main goal for this drill is for all of these agencies to get together and work together, just in case an event like this happens. It is not often that all of these agencies can work along each other to practice.
“Any type of emergency in this area, the Pickwick area, we rely on Alabama and Mississippi for mutual aid,” Martin said. “So the goal is to work together in a drill scenario, and be able to actually treat and transport a large number of victims.”
This is the first time they have been been able to do a drill of this size in the area. Around 20 agencies were involved.
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