Posted on 07/28/2004 5:54:35 AM PDT by jaime1959
A med student friend of mine participated in a multi-hospital emergency preparedness drill in Philadelphia last fall. Her tale sounded like a Laurel & Hardy flick: an emergency room supervisor couldn't figure out there was a drill going on, in spite of people milling around in front of her sporting orange vests with "DRILL OBSERVER" in 8 inch high letters, and after being filled in, re-emerged wearing the hospital's ONLY chemical-protective suit -- which drill staff quickly pointed out to her was minutes from running out of oxygen.
My friend and her fellow "poisoning victims" writhed around on the ground outside the emergency room entrance for half an hour, before one of them got the bright idea of crawling/writhing through the automatically-opening door, to see if someone inside might notice and offer help. He got put on a stretcher and utterly ignored until the drill was declared over.
If I get poisoned/injured in a terrorist attack, I'm not letting anyone take me to a hospital!
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