New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
‘Victims’ act out disaster scenarios in Tweed drill
NEW HAVEN — Lynn Mudak took her “victim” role seriously, writhing on the pavement of a decommissioned runway at Tweed New Haven Regional Airport following a “collision” between a fullyloaded Avelo Airlines airplane and a box truck that left dozens of people injured.
“I’m having a heart attack,” Mudak, a real-life member of the West Hartford Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), explained, adding that as part of the disaster scenario, she was having severe respiratory issues. “That’s why I’m cyanotic,” or bluish purple, around the lips, she said.
Soon, New Haven firefighters and American Medical Response personnel came in to treat Mudak and dozens of other “victims” spread out near three old yellow school buses standing in for broken sections of the imaginary plane’s fuselage amid a fuel fire near one of them. None of it was real.
It all was part of Tweed New Haven’s FAA-mandated triennial disaster drill, which took place Tuesday morning at the airport.
Students from several of Connecticut’s technical schools, including BullardHavens Technical High School in Bridgeport, Emmett O’Brien Technical High School in Ansonia, Vinal Technical High School in Middletown and Windham Technical High School in Willimantic, took part, along with Yale New Haven Hospital, American Medical Response and the New Haven and East Haven fire departments, among others.
“It’s a requirement every three years,” with “tabletop” drills during the off years, said Tom Rafter, executive director of the Tweed New Haven Airport Authority. The last such drill was severely hampered, taking place in the midst of the COVID pandemic, so this was the first full-blown drill in years.
Aside from being required, the drill is important because “it keeps all of our plans fresh and updated,” Rafter said. Plus, he said, it’s a way to see all the various first-responder agencies “exercising their roles.”
Tuesday, the disaster scenario was a collision between a box truck and an airplane carrying 150 people, causing dozens of serious injuries, said Michael Jones, CEO of the New HVN LLC, the Avports LLC subsidiary that operates Tweed under a sublease with the Tweed New Haven Airport Authority.
The drill is “to test our resources and our reflexes in a live event, judging our time and distance from dispatch to completion,” said New Haven Fire Chief John Alston, who was joined on the scene by his East Haven counterpart, Fire Chief Matthew Marcarelli.
New Haven firefighters were in charge of the scene. East Haven firefighters were in charge of supplying water to two Tweed Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting firefighting vehicles.
“The value in having all the multiple agencies at this same location is invaluable,” Alston said.
Twenty “victims” from the airport actually went to Yale New Haven Hospital, a number far smaller than what hospital officials expected, said Manager of Disaster Preparedness and Response Jordan Rose Swenson.
“Initially, we had intended on 35, but we were expecting 150 actors,” Swenson said. “We only had 28 show up. So they sent us 21.”
The victims are given cards for the disaster scenarios, so “they were actually acting out what was on their cards,” Swenson said.
“He’s giving me a leg
wound,” said Lisa Benet, also a volunteering member of the West Hartford CERT Team, as Bob Nappe of the Center for Emergency Medical Services at Yale New Haven Hospital put the finishing touches on a burn wound made from a cast of an actual burn on her thigh.
Nappe is a former East Haven police officer and an Iraq war veteran who has worked for the hospital for several years. He said he volunteers for Tweed’s triennial
disaster drill because “I believe in being a good citizen. They need people to help.”
Among the challenges presented in the drill were language barriers between a victim and first responders and a mother in pain worried about her child.
East Haven Fire Chief Marcarelli said the exercise was “as live as you can positively get it” and was beneficial for interagency communication and cooperation.