FAIRMONT – One student was likely already dead, as his panic-stricken friends half-dragged, half-carried him to the Emergency Room entrance at WVU Medicine-Fairmont Medical Center.
Another, convulsing on the floor, would succumb to her injuries in minutes – even as medical staff urgently worked to save her life.
The injuries were gruesome: Gaping head wounds and deep gashes.
Compound fractures.
One student, with a shard of glass protruding from his chest, was trying to wheeze out an account of what happened, as he was being placed on a stretcher.
What happened – happened quick.
It was the partial collapse of the roof of Hardway Hall, the main administration building of nearby Fairmont State University.
At just after 8:30 a.m., the building that houses the offices of the university president, the provost and other academic leaders was teeming with people.
There were students filing into the large, terraced lecture halls on the ground floor.
And there were the administrators, professors, counselors and custodians on the main floor, who were just getting started in their morning with the students who make the place go.
“What’s that rumble?” one asked. Then, chaos and screams.
Through the tumult at the hospital, a security guard briskly threaded his way through the stretchers and walking wounded.
“We’ve got more,” he said, to no one in particular.
“They came in through the main entrance.”
And so went Thursday morning’s mass-casualty drill at the medical campus, right across from the university campus.
Real-world assessments
Thursday’s drill was a “no-notice” exercise, meaning that only a handful of people in the hospital knew what was coming.
“We’ve been working on this since May,” said Elizabeth Garrasi, director of emergency management for WVU Medicine, who coordinated the exercise.
“This is a chance for us to gauge our preparedness,” she said.
“Because if something like this happens, people are going to pour in.”
After all, the director said, those who are regularly at the university are also going to know there’s a hospital next door in the event of a disaster, such as a structural collapse.
Through their adrenaline and fear, those who can still walk, or crawl, are going to get to that hospital, she said – no matter what.
And they’re going to get their badly-injured friends to that hospital, no matter what – and likely before the ambulances do.
“I didn’t know this was happening today,” one nurse said, as she made a call for oxygen and administered an I.V. (not real) for one of the “victims” of the exercise.
“I didn’t either,” her colleague said.
“No, this is a priority,” another nurse said, as she carried out an actual conversation on the phone.
“No it doesn’t matter that it’s a drill,” she continued. “This is priority. This still has to come first. That other stuff goes on hold.”
Emergencies (real and portrayed)
In all, 13 nursing students from Fairmont State served as victims in the scenario, with their portrayals enhanced by the moulage makeup they were wearing for the morning.
Moulage, like old-school Hollywood special effects, is application that depicts injuries such as bad cuts, burns and protruding bones.
The students grinned at each other over the scrambled eggs and coffee the hospital set up for them in the Hamilton Conference Center before the exercise.
Garrisi was smiling, too, as she gridded the ground rules, which were easy.
Thespian tendencies were most definitely encouraged, she said.
Acting out injuries to the hilt – the moans, the yelling – will work just fine, so long as once doesn’t decide to get overly aggressive with staff.
“You’re gonna be dead, right?” she asked one student. “So, if you find yourself getting to where you really can’t breathe – say that.”
The safe-word of the day, should a student find himself in actual distress: “This is a real-world emergency.”
“That way they’ll know it’s not the drill,” she said. “We want to keep everybody safe.”
Colleague to colleague
Fairmont Medical Center CEO Aaron Yanuzo agreed.
“This is why we’re doing this,” he said.
“We’ll take a lot of lessons learned today. It’s about providing care for the community.”
Which is another key phrase in the lexicon, he said.
The facility, the former Fairmont General Hospital, served the city and Marion County for decades.
Like a patient in intensive care, however, the hospital waxed and waned, as it was bought and sold, more than once.
In 2020, the owner before WVU Medicine shuttered the facility at the height of the pandemic.
Fairmont State nursing student Rosemary Masarone, who “suffered” a compound fracture in the drill, said she was impressed at what she saw.
“I think it took them a couple of patients,” she said.
“But once they got going, they were doing everything that we’re being trained to do in school.”
