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Beebe Healthcare Hosts Emergency Preparedness Drill with Delaware National Guard, Partners 

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emergency exercise June 8 2021

 

Beebe Healthcare partnered with Delaware National Guard, Delaware Division of Public Health's Emergency Medical Services and Preparedness team, City of Lewes Ambulance, and University of Delaware to host a disaster preparedness drill, Monday, June 7 to Tuesday, June 8.
 
The drill was two parts: First, a bus carrying special needs children crashed, sending many to the hospital; Second, a hurricane was approaching Lewes and the decision was made to evacuate the hospital.
 
Beebe's Incident Command was located at the hospital while the on-site landing team was at the University of Delaware's Lewes Campus on Pilottown Road. The teams communicated via walkie-talkie and cell phones to send "patients" from the hospital to the landing zone where they were met by teams of nurses and National Guard to be transported in two Black Hawk helicopters to Nemours Children’s Health and ChristianaCare in Wilmington.
 
"It was a broad event that allows our teams to work together and really learn how we could handle this in a real-life situation. We learned a lot and we feel better prepared should this situation arise," said Cheryl Hopple, Beebe's Emergency Management Director. “We could not have accomplished this without the help of the Delaware National Guard, Nemours Children’s Health, the Lewes Fire Department, or the University of Delaware.”

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Beebe nurses at emergency exercise June 8 2021

During the drill, Beebe Healthcare continued to operate normally, and patient care was not affected. Additionally, mannequins were used instead of patients for infection prevention safety. 

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Beebe emergency exercise with Blackhawk helicopters June 8 2021