Mass-casualty plans become reality as Western Pa. hospitals treat turnpike crash victims

Doctors and nurses buzzed around Allegheny Health Network’s Forbes Hospital early Sunday as they waited to receive 11 patients who were involved in a tour bus crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike that left five dead and about 55 injured.

More than twice as many crash victims — 31 in all — were taken to Excela Health Frick Hospital in Mt. Pleasant Township.

UPMC Somerset treated and released 18 more victims.

Mass casualty plans became reality for local hospitals as medical personnel scrambled to handle the influx of patients after the bus struck an embankment and flipped onto its side, creating what state police called a chain-reaction crash with tractor-trailers and a passenger vehicle.

Officials at each hospital system said the preparation paid off.

“Based on the geography of Frick Hospital, they have seen other accidents that have been, not to this magnitude, but of the type where you would have a large number of people that would need to be seen in a short period of time,” Excela spokeswoman Robin Jennings said.

Twenty-seven of Frick’s patients were treated and released, and others were taken to UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and UPMC Presbyterian in Oakland with more serious injuries, Jennings said.

Frick implemented a system that brought in necessary personnel in the early morning and continued adding staff as injuries were assessed, Jennings said.

The plan is designed by an emergency management committee that asks a series of questions: What are the possible scenarios, and how does staff respond? Who needs to respond first based on a tiered response? Who needs to be there as the circle gets bigger and the hours pass?

“It’s based on the proximity to the turnpike, the proximity to Seven Springs, so kind of the geography makes Frick a destination,” Jennings said.

After seeing how many patients were headed to Frick, doctors and nurses from UPMC Somerset prepared for an influx of patients, said Dr. Donald Yealy, chair of emergency medicine for UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh.

“If a department has very little demand outside of this (type of situation), you have much more ability to absorb, then you add resources depending on what information you have,” Yealy said. “In any one of these, it’s hard to know how many victims there are going to be and how many will have very serious levels of injuries versus, perhaps, less intense injuries.”

At Forbes, patients with neurosurgical injuries requiring spine surgery, or who had abdominal injuries, a brain bleed, contusions and fractures were met by surgeons, neurosurgeons, psychologists, and medical and emergency personnel, said Dr. Mark Rubino, president of Forbes Hospital.

Officials called in nurses who spoke Spanish to help with patients who do not speak fluent English, Rubino said, and many patients took advantage of clothes that were made available by hospital staff through a grant from the Monroeville Foundation.

“What happened was when this bus turned over, a lot of their clothing and personal belongings were contaminated with diesel so they all came in scared; it was dark, it was cold,” Rubino said.

Emergency responders from Mutual Aid closer to the scene of the crash were some of the first to arrive, Rubino said, triaging patients and transporting them to hospitals based on the severity of their injuries.

Over the course of several hours, five crash victims were discharged from the Monroeville hospital, four remained under doctor’s care and two were in surgery, Rubino said.

“It really does take a whole community to run a trauma center,” Rubino said.