Jamaica’s mass casualty response was tested last Thursday (January 23) with a full-scale simulation of a large plane crash and the subsequent search and rescue and medical attention of victims, at the Ken Jones Aerodrome in Portland.
The exercise was spearheaded by the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) and the Ministry of Health and Wellness, with the involvement of several key local and international entities. It was the final event under the multinational Exercise Event Horizon 2025.
Major Noel Lewis, acting commanding officer for the JDF Airwing and search and rescue track lead for Exercise Event Horizon 2025, deemed the simulation a success, pointing out that all aspects of Jamaica’s emergency response to a mass casualty were tested.
“The downed aircraft scenario was for a commercial airliner with 150 passengers on board, and we staged 150 actual extras at the aerodrome that would have gone through the mass casualty response. We were able to achieve, in some way, shape or form, all of the elements that we were trying to test,” Major Lewis told JIS News.
“Things, like the search and rescue component, that was done by the security forces where we would have high-level monitoring overhead whilst conducting the rescue in the water space below, and then the transportation of the victims to the mass casualty response site where there would have been a full-scale activation of the National Emergency Operations Centre. We also would have simulated, not just the entire triage process for all of the ‘victims’, but also any aftercare requirements that may have come out of the response,” he added.
Several key agencies of Government were involved in the exercise, including the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), Airports Authority of Jamaica (AAJ), Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority (JCAA), Jamaica Customs Agency (JCA), Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency (PICA), Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPM) and Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB).
International partners were the Costa Rican Air Vigilance Service and the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, which provided support during the event.
“The plane that was overhead providing the aerial command and control was a Costa Rican plane. JDF helicopters were flying to conduct the rescue, and Bahamas was providing drone monitoring. So they used drones to monitor the crash site and helped us to maintain the accountability for the people in the water,” Major Lewis said, noting that the JCF, JDF and JCA had vessels in the water participating in the exercise.
At the aerodrome, a large team from the Ministry of Health and Wellness quickly set up a medical base.
Ambulances and helicopters could be seen bringing in passengers who had various injuries necessitating the use of wheelchairs and stretchers in some cases.
Dr Nicole Dawkins Wright, director for emergency disaster management and special services in the
ministry, said “this kind of incident would call for what we already have in place”, pointing to Jamaica’s National Mass Rescue Operations Plan.
She further noted that through the simulation, the ministry was able to test “setting up a field medical post in the vicinity of the crash site, the logistics requirements with the transporting of a large number of victims by the parish team into their local hospitals as well as ensuring effective transfer.”
Dawkins Wright said the exercise was also a test of the ministry’s mass casualty incident plan as well as Jamaica’s incident command systems.
“It (the exercise) reinforces the training that would have been done, and it would allow us to identify some critical areas that will need to be strengthened,” she added.
Major Lewis similarly said there were many lessons learnt, “those things that would cause us to be able to implement effective changes in the various systems [so that], in the event of any kind of situation like that, the agencies within the Government of Jamaica will be better able to effectively respond.”
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