BDLS/ADLS

Area Health Education Center of Southwest Oregon provided the coordination of a Basic and Advanced Disaster Life Support Courses conducted by the International Association for Disaster Medicine based in Reno, Nevada. The 4 day course was held in July of this year. Funding for the course was provided to AHEC-SW by a Hospital Preparedness Program Grant through the Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services and Oregon’s Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness.

Doctors, nurses and paramedics from all over the state took part in a mass casualty drill in Eugene. In the worst case scenario, in the biggest disaster you can think of, even doctors and nurses have to go to a scene to help save lives.

It's a task that takes coordination and a special level of federal certification, one that until Thursday, not a single person in Oregon has ever earned. It's called Basic Disaster Life Support and advanced disaster life support.

"As health care providers we have all received training on protocols to deal with particular types of disaster situations," said Hospital Preparedness Coordinator Tracy DePew. "This course just rolls it into one curriculum. So it's not so much a gap in terms of the state of the Oregon. It's just that we've evolved to the point that we're able to this type of training and create a cadre of trained individuals."

In Thursdays drill, someone blew up a car. The suspect hid inside a building along with at least twenty people in desperate need of help.

Heather Freiheit is a Registered Nurse/Paramedic with the State Disaster Medical Team.

"I think it's extremely important," said Freiheit. "You never know what's going to happen or when you have a scenario and you have a large volume of patients and victims."

It's not just the students that will benefit from the drill. They are also being trained to teach the same class in their own communities across the state. Over 40 of the participants became Certified Course Instructors. The grant also covered the purchase of new equipment to support future BDLS/ADLS courses AHEC-SW’s on going First Responder and other health occupations programs.