Due to an accidental ammonia discharge on April 16, the Mullins Center interior had been turned into a shelter and emergency patient triage, the outside was an area reserved for decontamination of the infected. Students were being hosed off while workers in sterile white haz-mat suits walked around, a woman cried holding onto her baby, and psychological first aid workers talked people out of suicide.
The one thing missing, however, was the accidental ammonia discharge. The UMass Amherst Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) and Emergency Management office held a practice emergency drill to “enhance skills and readiness for mass care.” The drill is funded through an $11,500 grant from the Western Massachusetts Regional Homeland Security Advisory Counsel.
The drill is held so that campus can be prepared in the event of potential threats like a pandemic, bioterrorism, and natural disasters. Ann Becker, director of UMass MRC and public health nurse at UHS, said that luckily the school has never had a full medical outbreak that would require turning the Mullins Center into a shelter, but they have come very close sometimes with ailments like the flu and meningitis. Buildings in UMass have been turned into a shelter for other events though. In 1957 the Student Union Ballroom became a hospital for the 1957 flu pandemic. There have been other scattered incidents of UMass being used a shelter for ice storms where the surrounding community loses power.
More than 300 volunteers turned up, including students, Medical Reserve Corps workers, University Health Services and Mental Health Services workers, Environmental Health and Safety representatives, police officers, fire department staff, the American Red Cross, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, School of Nursing students and faculty, student emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) members.
To learn more about the drill, watch the slide show. Click the button with 4 arrows on it on the bottom right to view the show in full screen and see captions about the drill.
