POMPANO BEACH, Fla. – Tri-Rail partnered with Pompano Beach Fire Rescue Thursday to simulate a mass casualty event in case of a possible derailment.
“We’ve set up a joint training for multiple casualty incident,” Pompano Beach Fire Rescue training chief Don Desmond said.
While Thursday’s scenario was just a drill, if and when this actually happens, these agencies will know how to respond.
“This is set up as a train versus vehicle, where the train hit a vehicle at a railroad crossing and simulated that the train caught fire, smoked up the passenger car, and we had about 19 patients on board,” Desmond said.
Pompano Beach Fire Rescue hosted the morning training that included a mutual aid response from local fire departments, including Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue and first responders from Tamarac, Coconut Creek, Coral Springs, Parkland, Oakland Park, Lauderhill and Margate.
Since each department has its own response protocol, they say it’s important to practice collaboration before a real situation arises.
“These incidents happen throughout the country, throughout the world, and we all need to be able to work together,” Desmond said. “So if we’re all on the same page -- we train together -- it makes things go smoother in these large incidents.”
Thursday’s exercise was also designed to help Tri-Rail with their crews and how they handle emergency situations.
“We all are going to have to work together, so we set up a training so that we would all be able to work together and to complete this training scenario,” Desmond said.