Simulated Disaster to Strike Westcott

NORTH CHARLESTON — S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control District 7, in conjunction with EMS, fire departments, law enforcement, coroners and all Charleston area hospitals will conduct a live, mass causality incident readiness exercise.

District 7 includes the tricounty region.

The exercise will be conducted on Tuesday, May 15. The initial “dispatch notification” of the incident will take place at 10 a.m. The simulated disaster is being staged at the Amenity Center in The Farm at Wescott Plantation located at 9501 Patriot Boulevard in North Charleston.

This exercise is being conducted in accordance with criteria established by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

This exercise is designed to evaluate the on scene incident management including the ability to establish unified incident command, on-scene triage and treatment of a large number of injured patients, the effective use of mutual aid, communications system inter-operability, and patient load distribution to area hospitals.

All hospitals will be evaluating their ability to prepare for a mass casualty incident, their ability to establish an effective incident command system within the hospital and their ability to establish effective communication between all area hospitals so as to assure optimum care for all patients.

Participating agencies include:

• Dorchester County EMS (lead agency and host)
• Berkeley County EMS
• Charleston County EMS
• City of North Charleston Fire Department
• City of North Charleston Police Department
• Ashley River Fire Department
• Old Fort Fire Department
• Dorchester County Coroner
• Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office Dispatch Center
• Charleston County Consolidated Dispatch Center
• Dorchester County Emergency Management Department
• DHEC District 7
• Summerville Medical Center
• Trident Medical Center
• MUSC Medical Center
• Roper Hospitals 
• East Cooper Medical Center
• Mt. Pleasant Hospital
• Moncks Corner Medical Center
• Roper Berkeley Day Hospital
• Ralph Johnson VA Medical Center
• Joint Base Charleston

Edited 6:25 a.m. May 15 to correct date of event, which was incorrectly listed as May 5.