Realistic disaster scene played out at Burl’s Creek to sharpen skills of first responders

Some realistic-looking scenes played out in Oro-Medonte as emergency response teams participated in mock training exercises.

Some realistic-looking scenes played out at Burl’s Creek in Oro-Medonte Tuesday as emergency response teams participated in a mock training exercise to prepare them for real-life disasters.

The large-scale simulated emergency scenarios involved volunteers in the role of victims, and police, paramedics and firefighters on the Burl’s Creek event grounds in Oro Station.

Tuesday’s exercise is meant to help emergency personnel sharpen their skills and better prepare for an actual disaster.

“So, what we simulated today is a concert outdoors,” explained Grant Durfey, manager of Emergency Management County of Simcoe. “There’s been a severe weather system that came in, lots of wind, lightening struck the stage and caused part of the stage to collapse, injuring a fair number of people.”

“These situations are made to be a realistic as possible to ensure our response dictates how we would react in a real situation,” said Orillia OPP Staff Sgt. Brent Elbers.

As part of the training event, the responders are pushed to prioritize the injured, determine who needs what help and what to do next.

“Anytime you can bring this many agencies together to work towards a common goal there’s usually a lot of take away here that certainly will benefit anybody that might require our services,” said Oro-Medonte Fire Chief Roree Payment.

“It’s an overall coordination of where do we get resources to where they need to go,” said Durfey. “Also coordinating with hospitals - where do we send these patients? They can’t all go to the same hospital.”

The mock disaster training exercise started around 10 a.m. and wrapped up around 2 p.m. Information gathered from the training will be utilized in future mass casualty training.