By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

A drill for the emergency response to an airplane crash at the Hays Regional Airport won’t replicate such an incident exactly, but it comes close.

Emergency responders from throughout Ellis County participated in a full-scale exercise Wednesday morning at the airport.

Darin Myers, Ellis County Emergency Manager and Rural Fire Chief, along with Ryan Hagans, Hays Fire Chief, were the exercise directors.

Overall, things went well, Myers said.

“You can only have a pretend fire for so long before the pretend fire goes out. Then you move on to the next phase of evacuating the fuselage.”

The drill started at 9 a.m. and took a little more than 90 minutes. An actual airplane crash response would likely take longer.

“It may have taken us only 10 to 15 minutes down there, but in real life to move patients who are unable to walk like we did today, they would have to be carried out or drug out,” Myers said. “That would take a lot more time.”

Approximately 30 volunteers from the NCK-Tech College nursing program portrayed the injured passengers.

Each person wore a vest identifying them as an actor and also had a piece of paper with their symptoms written on it. Most actors were wearing red makeup to resemble blood flowing from their injuries. Some patients also had moulage kits applied to simulate wounds.

After they were triaged by Ellis County EMS personnel, four passengers were declared dead.

“I had no visible injuries,” said Kylie Watson, Topeka, “but I had a blank stare, couldn’t feel air movement and had no color to my fingertips. So they had to decide whether I was dead or not, which I was.”

Tyra Younie, Hays, portrayed a victim who had been decapitated.

“I wasn’t wearing any special makeup to indicate that. I just kind of slumped over and hid my face,”  Younie said.

Alexa Brull, Catherine, had a head injury. “I was not responsive, not breathing, so I was tagged ‘black.’

The NCK-Tech students have been working with hospitalized “patients” in their classrooms. They found the response to casualties at an airplane crash to be quite different.

“It was very interesting to see how they coded each one of us and who they responded to first,” Watson said.

“We were all on the aircraft. They got to us pretty quick and were really good about prioritizing each victim and getting us off the plane.”

There were also individuals inside the airport terminal portraying distraught family members.

In yesterday’s exercise, a Hays USD 489 yellow school bus served as the airplane. Hays and Ellis County firefighters poured water on the simulated fire and smoke visible at the crash site off the south end of the airport apron.

The Hays airport is required by the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct such emergency exercises every three years.

Following the drill, all the participants gathered near the airport fire station and submitted their feedback in written form to Myers. Then each agency, observer and evaluator talked about what went well and what could have been done better.

This was the first such exercise for airport manager Jamie Salter, who was appointed to the position in late February. “I felt like she did a great job,” said one observer.

In her series of contacts, Salter first notified Jesse Rohr, Hays public works director, then city management followed by the city’s Public Information Officer. Rohr was one of the on-site observers.

Hays Fire Department Captain Aaron Dome talked about the incident command post.

“We had a pretty good unified command between medical branch, law branch, and the airport. We were all face-to-face. It went pretty smooth  on our end,” Dome said.

Site security was evaluated by Toby Prine, the Kansas Regional Emergency Management Coordinator for northwest Kansas who is based in Hays.

“About 9:04 a.m., Hays police started blocking access to the airport. At 9:16 a.m. they brought in mutual aide units like the sheriff’s department and Kansas Highway Patrol,” Prine reported.

“Later on they identified the hospital as a possible critical area with internal security at the hospital (HaysMed). The discussion was we need to keep that in the forefront in case they need additional law enforcement out there. Overall, they did a very good job,” he added.

Don Scheibler, Hays police chief, agreed.

“In this type of event, law enforcement’s primary job is to provide a safe and secure environment for you guys to do what you need to do,” Scheibler told the participants.

Ellis County EMS reported they were on scene for 40 minutes with all the critical patients transported within 20 minutes. SkyWest Airline personnel provided information to EMS on the number of passengers and crew which EMS used to determine whether they needed to request out-of-county ambulances.

A couple of concerns were noted by firefighters.

All the county’s fire trucks are paired with supplies according to the vehicles’ engine capability.  “On scene we can split the crew, but we need to keep the equipment together,” said one rural firefighter.

“In that transition period when we went from operations fire-wise to EMS-wise on our end, we kind of ditched a crew down there. I knew Justin (firefighter Choitz) had it under control,” said Tyler Brungardt, HFD lieutenant. “I feel like that probably could have gone a little bit smoother.”

HaysMed Security Manager Mike Filley evaluated the performance of EMS and health support. “I’m going to talk to Kerry (McCue-Ellis County EMS/Health Services Director) a little more about it but, overall it was pretty good.”

An after-action report will be compiled and distributed with a summary of key information related to the evaluation along with plans for improvement.

Participating agencies were Hays Public Works, Fire, and Police Departments, Ellis County EMS, Fire and Emergency Management, and Sheriff Departments, Kansas Highway Patrol, Hays Aircraft, SkyWest Airlines, TSA, Hays Medical Center, EagleMed, and NCK-Tech College.