Staff Photo by Angela Lewis Kenny Moffitt rolls up the flap of a tent during training excercises with the Tennessee-1 Disaster Medical Assistance Team at Northwest Whitfield High School on Thursday.
Few have heard of them, but a group of about 100 medical professionals gathers every other month to drill for large-scale disasters across the country.
"We're like 'MASH' without surgery," said Ted Rogers, commander of the Tennessee Disaster Medical Assistance Team.
The team is training this weekend at Northwest High School in Tunnel Hill, Ga., as part of its annual full-scale drill, Cmdr. Rogers said. Training varies, but this week the team set up Thursday and will refresh and teach medical skills to team members through Sunday.
Since its inception in 2002, Tennessee DMAT has responded to Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike and other natural disasters.
The team is one of 52 organized under the National Disaster Medical System to respond to any situation where "anything happens to compromise the local medical infrastructure," said Cmdr. Rogers, who lives in Collegedale.
The only team of its type in Tennessee, the 100-member, Chattanooga-based group draws medical professionals and others from Memphis to Johnson City as well as from North Alabama and Georgia. Team members work as a paramilitary group and are covered under deployment laws similar to the National Guard.
Nationwide teams rotate through on-call status that overlaps regions. The Tennessee team on-call schedule this year is April, August and October.
"But just because we're not on call doesn't mean we can't be called," the commander said.
Every team in the nation was called during Hurricane Katrina, for instance. The Tennessee team saw 25,000 patients during the event, he said.
The team can travel in truck convoys, rental cars and military or civilian aircraft to reach a destination. Cmdr. Rogers said the group hasn't used a boat yet, but that's not out of the question.
Everyone on the team hauls gear that fills three 24-foot trucks, everything from bandages to portable medical diagnostic equipment. But once the hauling is done, each team member takes on a specialty.
Christy Westmoreland, of Chattanooga, is the deputy commander, or second-in-command. Her job is to check in with section leaders who have other members reporting to them throughout the operation.
The team can operate 72 hours without a resupply -- the trucks carry water, fuel, food, generators and any other necessary items. Often the team will set up next to a hospital that may have lost power or, if damage is too great, in the middle of a field where medical patients will be sent for evaluation.
Critical training
Dr. David Wharton, chief medical officer for the team, said the bimonthly and annual training sessions are critical to keep the team proficient.
"If you don't keep going over it, somebody might get lazy and get hurt," he said.
Most of the work is stabilization, which can range from treating minor cuts to intubating patients who can't breathe on their own, he said.
But triage in a field environment is not the same as in a hospital where a swarm of staff will surround one patient in critical condition and less critical patients must wait. In the field, nurses and doctors must make tough decisions in a hurry.
The goal, Dr. Wharton said, is to do the most they can for the most people.
"If I have one cardiac arrest and 50 people outside whose condition I don't know, we're not going to run that code; their dead, they're survival chances are very low," he said.
Not all of the team are medical professionals. Mike Ewton, of Dalton, Ga., joined the team two years ago as the security and safety officer. His background in the Army and as a Whitfield County sheriff's deputy brought skills to the team involving crowd control and operational safety on site.
His first deployment with the team was last year during Hurricane Gustav.
"I never sat through an actual hurricane hitting a building," Mr. Ewton said. "The windows were blown out and water was on the floor."
Mr. Ewton's job is to keep the "big picture" in mind while everyone else is focusing on more detailed tasks such as loading and unloading equipment.
He said something as simple as setting up traffic cones to funnel people into a site can keep better order when people are in such stressful conditions.
"It's very hard work, often 110 degrees, very austere conditions," Deputy Cmdr. Westmoreland said. "But it is liberating because you get to practice your craft."
