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 Previous: ARRL Seeks Funds to Support New Education and Technology Program Initiatives | ![Next (later) Story](/images/sty-up.gif ""It Seems to Us . . ." BPL--A Blind Alley"){kind=small} Next: "It Seems to Us . . ." BPL--A Blind Alley |
By Joe
Moell K0OV
Assistant
Coordinator, HDSCS
June 30, 2004
For members of the Hospital Disaster Support Communications System (HDSCS) of Orange County, California, Field Day 2004 was an opportunity to serve the community and to be recognized for past service. Before they could send the first "CQ FD," they were called into action for real.
 April Moell WA6OPS, HDSCS Coordinator, was Net Control for the WAMC phone outage response from her car at the Field Day site. (Photo by Joe Moell, K0OV) |
HDSCS is a special ARES group that provides communications for medical facilities when normal means fail or overload. The 80-member organization has standing agreements with all of the county's 34 hospitals. Early on June 26, members of HDSCS began setting up Field Day stations on the parking lots and lawns of Huntington Beach Hospital (HBH).
"Dave West of HBH is a great host," says April Moell, WA6OPS, the HDSCS founder and ARES Emergency Coordinator. "This is the third year that we have had Field Day there. The hospital goes all out to give us a great site, and in turn we educate the staff on the services that Amateur Radio can do and has done."
At 8:30 AM, WA6OPS received a page indicating a
communications failure at West Anaheim Medical Center (WAMC). She immediately
dispatched Tom Gaccione, WB2LRH, and Cheryl Simpson, KD6MWZ, from HBH to WAMC,
9 miles north. Then she and K0OV made calls on the group's primary repeater and
on their cell phones to activate four other members who live close to WAMC.
 Bryan Hanley, Disaster Coordinator of Orange County Emergency Medical Services (standing), presents a new communicator vest to Clay Stearns, KE6TZR. (Photo by Joe Moell, K0OV) |
Twenty minutes after the page, WB2LRH and KD6MWZ were in the WAMC parking lot. The other four responders soon followed. The hospital's phone technician, arriving just after Tom and Cheryl, discovered that a power supply failure had caused all internal telephone system extensions within the 219-bed facility to go down.
As the tech worked on the phone problem, HDSCS operators dispersed to critical areas to be ready for any urgent messages during the outage. Paul Broden, K6MHD, went to the switchboard (PBX) area, Fred Lochner, WA6FRA, was stationed in the Emergency Department and Woody Woodward, KJ6LE, went to Intensive Care (ICU). Tom Gaccione, WB2LRH, roamed the hospital with the Nursing Supervisor and Susan Hafner "shadowed" the Disaster Coordinator. Cheryl Simpson, KD6MWZ, relayed traffic between the internal and external nets from her vehicle. WA6OPS was Net Control and David Mofford, W7KTS, provided a landline link from his home station.
Repairs to the phone system were completed and tested at 10:30 AM. HDSCS operators remained on station in the facility for an additional 30 minutes to ensure that everything in the system was stable. Then they left, after receiving profound thanks from the hospital staff.
Meanwhile, FD setup continued in Huntington Beach, getting HDSCS on the air at official start time in Class 2A. Twenty members participated in all. The public relations table was just as busy as the on-air stations, as 25 hospital staff and local visitors came by to learn about Amateur Radio and how it can support agencies in disasters, large and small.
Bryan Hanley, Disaster Coordinator of Orange County
Emergency Medical Services (OCEMS), drove in for a visit shortly after noon. In
his trunk was a big box of Emergency Communicator vests that had just been
procured by his agency, funded by a Homeland Security grant. Each HDSCS member
will keep a vest in his or her Go Kit to wear when appropriate in future
activations.
 WA6OPS accepts the Certificate of Congressional Recognition from Dr Fadi Essmaeel, representing Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. Also in the front row are Bryan Hanley of Orange County EMS and Mary Botticella, Administrator of HBH. In the back row are Martha Dispoto and Nate Hart of HBH; Dennis Kidder, WA6NIA; Jack Hafner, KO6IC, and Susan Hafner, KD6YMH. (Photo by Joe Moell, K0OV) |
At 2 PM, all of the operators put down mikes and keys for a special presentation by Dr Fadi Essmaeel, a representative of the office of US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. The Congressman himself had planned to attend, but was called away at the last minute for a TV news appearance. He had become aware of the accomplishments of HDSCS about a month before, when WA6OPS participated in a Domestic Preparedness training course for medical personnel that was organized by the his office.
Dr Essmaeel presented HDSCS with a Certificate of Congressional Recognition. He then spoke briefly about Homeland Security issues and invited input from the gathered hams. Of course this was an opening to express concern about the adverse impact of BPL. Taking ARRL's handout on the subject, Dr Essmaeel agreed to look into it in depth.
This was the second Congressional recognition of HDSCS in the past year. When General Counsel Chris Imlay, W3KD, presented the ARRL National Certificate of Merit to the group at the Southwestern Division convention last fall, the event was accompanied by a citation from US Congressman Ed Royce. There were also accolades from State Senator Dick Ackerman, State Assemblyman Todd Spitzer and County Supervisor Bill Campbell.
 Dennis Kidder, WA6NIA, HDSCS FD Chair, demonstrates the 10 GHz station to Dr Essmaeel. He also explained the potential interference problems of BPL. (Photo by Dave West, HBH) |
Since 1980, HDSCS has activated for 83 emergency responses, 66 in-hospital standby responses and 133 formal drills with supported hospitals. Three-fourths of the emergencies have been failures of telephone switching equipment, hardware or software, in one hospital. "Phone outages in hospitals are more common than most people realize," April remarks. "We respond to about three per year. I'm sure that communities around the country are having similar emergencies that aren't being helped by Amateur Radio, but could be."
"Any phone outage in a hospital is a true emergency," April continues. "Imagine yourself as an Intensive Care nurse who can't reach the Laboratory within the hospital or a physician outside the hospital because all the phones are down. We go in with enough operators to cover critical areas, depending on the time of day. We bring in our own Go Kits with handhelds for unit-to-unit communications, usually on UHF (223 and 440 MHz). We use repeaters on two meters, 125 cm and 70 cm bands to connect hospital Command Posts to our operators at other hospitals, county Emergency Medical Services, or agencies such as Red Cross, when the situation requires it."
The 20 minute response time for the first operator on FD
morning was typical. According to WA6OPS, "Operating under ARES instead of
RACES eliminates the need for a government 'middleman' in our alerting system.
The hospitals contact us directly by phone or pager. When those fail, they use
their Paramedic or EMS radios to get another hospital to alert us. We all keep
our Go Kits close by so we're ready."
 Certificate of Congressional Recognition from US Representative Dana Rohrabacher. |
This is the second time that an actual emergency has interrupted FD for HDSCS members. On June 28, 1992, the Landers and Big Bear twin earthquakes stuck early Sunday morning. "An earthquake is its own alerting system," says WA6OPS. "We respond automatically to check on each one of our hospitals as soon as the shaking stops. Immediately after the Landers quake, 32 of our members left their homes and Field Day sites and went to their assigned hospitals to check for damage and to assess communications needs."
Upon arriving at a hospital in Buena Park that morning, Gary Holoubek, WB6GCT, found it in total darkness because the facility's generators would not stay on line. Employees were scurrying, trying to find flashlights. Fortunately, Gary had some with him. The hospital phone system had also gone down, so it was WB6GCT's call to the HDSCS net that initiated help from the outside. "Who knows what could have happened there if we had not responded automatically after the first shake," says April.
Other disasters for which HDSCS has achieved recognition include the May 2002 Metrolink train collision in Placentia, the October 1993 firestorm in Laguna and the January 1995 flood in Laguna canyon. Stories of these activations are in the group's Web site www.hdscs.org, along with commendations and letters of thanks.
The HDSCS site also has information to help other ARES groups support their local hospitals, including frequently asked questions about how to approach hospital staff, equipment issues and alerting systems. The e-mail address for April Moell is wa6ops@hdscs.org.
The author is ARRL Amateur Radio Direction Finding
Coordinator. He can be reached at homingin@aol.com.
| Previous: ARRL Seeks Funds to Support New Education and Technology Program Initiatives | Next: "It Seems to Us . . ." BPL--A Blind Alley |
