Medical Personnel, Police Simulate Hostage Situation in Texas

Sept. 20--Local public safety and medical emergency workers tested their preparedness Thursday by simulating a hostage situation followed by a helicopter crash at Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen.

In a drill dubbed Code Silver, the exercise simulated a situation in which 16 persons were held hostage by four gunmen. Then a medical helicopter crashed on the hospital roof for the Code Red exercise.

"We plan, we plan with our community, our police department, our fire department, anything that possibly could occur," Patricio Ybarra, from the hospital's nursing administration department, said. "We plan as much as possible to be ready for our community in case something happens."

A cross-agency response team of an FBI observer, a Texas Ranger, Emergency Medical Services, Cameron County Sheriff's Department and police departments from Brownsville and San Benito collaborated to defuse the situations to prepare for possible incidents.

Officials said the response teams first tried negotiation strategies, but moved in with assault teams after negotiations failed.

"In a sign of the times, we have had to learn to coordinate our resources and effectively make use of them in critical incidents in hospitals, schools and things that represent critical infrastructure in our community," Brownsville Police Sgt. Felix Sauceda said. "In a critical incident environment it is very easy for us to run our resources slim, so we need to respond in numbers and this is why we learn to come together as one big team."

Hospital officials said that in the end, it is most important to be prepared for any situation in order to keep the public and employees safe.

"The most concerning thing is that we have patient safety, that the patients that we have in house are kept safe, plus the victims that are now in house are safe, and we have to keep personnel safe," Ybarra said. "We don't want anybody wandering into a situation and they are not aware that they have hostages and guns in house."

jmendoza@valleystar.com

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