Webinar Reviews EMS Response to 2011 Reno Air Race Crash

On Sept. 16, 2011, the Reno Stead Airport was hosting its Reno Air Races when one of the planes crashed just outside the box seats of the grandstand.

What followed in the next hour was described by Kevin Romero, vice president and public information officer of the Regional EMS Authority in Reno, NV. Romero hosted an International Public Safety Administration webcast on the topic, titled Reno Air Races: Responding to a Plane in the Stands.

Ultimately, the response to the incident was deemed a success. According to Romero, 54 patients that needed transport were cleared within 62 minutes.

Romero says one of the biggest positives from the response was their mass gathering algorithm, dictating what type of medical response would be on standby and at the event by how many people attended, what type of crowd there was, the location of the event and what type of event it was.

Since this crash, the algorithm has become law in Nevada.

About 30,000 people attended the event that day, including about 2,000 local schoolchildren and 400 volunteers, Romero says.

Response started immediately, with the announcer reading a scripted message to help direct spectators as to where to go.

This was practiced ahead of time, as part of a rigorous training regimen the responders follow. Romero credits this as one of the reasons why the response was successful.

Romero says that year alone they held four exercises relating to mass casualty incidents, including the review of their plan that morning. This helped them respond to other events that happened that year too, including an Amtrak crash and multiple fires.

Another successful part of the response was ingress and egress plan devised by the highway patrol and police. To alleviate congestion on the highways, the closes northbound freeway was closed for north and southbound ambulances and emergency traffic.

This allowed 14 ALS units to be sent immediately, and 20 additional units to be sent after about 20 minutes, Romero says.

In all, 69 were injured, 11 died and 54 patients were transported to the hospital.

Romero says much of the hardest work was left to be done post-incident, which was difficult to prepare for.

Accurate numbers were being requested from both elected officials and a swarm of media requests. A separate line was set up for the media, and was manned by members of their public relations team.

Counselors were needed for immediate and continued psychological needs of people involved in the incident or responding to the incident.

Romero says events relating to the crash, including memorials and community recognition events, continued for weeks and needed to be staffed by EMS, fire and police.

As advice to other agencies for preparing for such an event, the main thing Romero stresses is training. Romero says training of everyone that may be involved, including security, announcers and public works officers is essential.

Training everyone on how to immediately communicate with dispatch is valuable too, Romero says.

Also, making sure all the staff has completed all of the federally required training is important, Romero says.

Since the event, Romero says some changes have been made to improve response to such incidents.

Roles for Incident Command Systems are pre-assigned in the action plan for large-scaled events now, and ambulances carry a larger amount of tourniquets. After the crash, Romero says there were 15 full or partial amputations needed, and ambulances only carried one tourniquet.

Romero says they now train special events staff, and require field providers to train in ICS roles as well.

The agency’s MCI kits have been improved, and Romero works with event planners to make sure table clothes, drapes and other decorations are not the same color as the contents of their triage kits to avoid confusion.

To learn more about IPSA, become a member or view their previous webcasts, visit their website at joinipsa.org.