A French Brittany Spears

Today I volunteered to be a "victim" for our mass casualty drill at the hospital. The scenario was that a hurricane had hit Florida Hospital and they had to evacuate some patients to us. I had the card of "Brittany Spears" and I had some problem with my stomach that was causing internal bleeding. Other people had lacerations and things like that. We all lined up at the ER and then staff had to practice how they would react in case of an emergency like Katrina. It was very interesting. To add to the "fun" I pretended to be vacationing from Paris and speak French. It was interesting to see how the nurses responded to me. Some pointed to things and said "walk, sit, signature." One girl tried to use her high school French. I was told that should there be a real French person, they would get a translator service.

The interesting thing was, as we were debriefing from the drill we received word that several real patients had been evacuated to us from Texas and were actually sitting in the ER. SO, needless to say the meeting was adjourned rather quickly and the people involved with the patient care went to check on their respective areas.