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UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL OKLAHOMA
THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 2003
Terror drill trains responders at East Hall UCO Cheer squad and Porn and Dance team win the Division II national championships.
Photo by Tina Fowble
East Hall was the site of a mock disaster drill on April 11. Students volunteered as victims during the two-day event on campus.
Exercise simulates dirty bomb explosion â– For two days firemen, police and volunteers created a scene of disaster. by Caroline Duke cd@thevistaonline.corn At 5:30 p.m. April 11, a mock "dirty bomb" explosion at East Hall signaled the beginning of a national training exercise for first responders. As part of the overnight mock bio-chemical attack scenario, cars were buried under rubble and wounded" students were strewn across the ground, some pinned down by "shrapnel," to create a scene similar to those during the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the Sept. 11 attacks. Rescue organizations from across the country converged on the UCO campus to learn how to respond to man-made disasters, like terrorist "
acts, and natural disasters, like the May 3 tornado. Members of the U.S. Fifth Army, the Oklahoma National Guard and the U.S. Marine Corps were on hand for the exercise, said Gary Gleason, public information officer for Rescue Training Associates (RTA). Area hospitals and local firefighters also participated in the event, although Gleason said some firefighters came from as far away as Anchorage, Alaska. The majority of firefighters were from Edmond and Oklahoma City, he said. In addition to the students that lay injured on the lawn, some students were placed inside the building in "safe spots." Firefighters responded to the affected students, who each mimicked a victim of disaster. One "victim" complained of her eyes burning as a firefighter escorted her away from the scene. Volunteer nursing and forensic
science students from UCO set up triage to tend to the "walking wounded," nearly 125 student volunteers, after they were rescued by the firefighters. Gleason said this exercise was the third of its type hosted by RTA, a Florida-based company that provides training to first responders for urban search and rescue. Two other events were held last year in Miami and Connecticut, he said. The vacated dorm was partially demolished several days before the exercise to serve as the location of the simulated explosion. Charlie Johnson, University News Bureau director, said the building will be torn down and removed, and the land may be used for more student housing or classroom space. "We don't have an immediate plan for it," he said.
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Photo by Tina Fowble
Members of the Edmond Fire Department exit the decontamination tent at the East Hall drill.
East Hall serves as classroom for rescue crews
Nested reporter depicts scene at ground zero
by Thad Danner
by Mark Schlachtenhaufen
see Drill page 3
UCO Campus Life office and Volunteer Center are accepting donations for Oklahoma troops leaving for Iraq. - Page 5
ms@thevistaonline.com
td@thevistaonline.com EAST HALL, April 12 The eastern end of East Hall was demolished. An '88 Oldsmobile and a white Firebird lay under tons of smoking rubble. Small fires burned along the side of the building. On the lawn outside, students in gym shorts and tank-tops wandered around gashed and bleeding. Shrapnel and ash surrounded their wounds. At the center of the wounded sat a bombed out Toyota, its remaining door splotched with dripping blood. "Exercise artificialities." That is what both Jon Hanson, former. Oklahoma City Fire Chief, and Gary Gleason, Public Information Officer for Rescue Training Associates, called the parts of this simulation which differ from the real thing. "Exercise artificialities," like
UCO tennis teams struggled in the Broncho Intercollegiate Invitational April 12.
Editor's Note: Vista reporter Mark Schlachtenhaufen was a volunteer victim, one of the "walking wounded," in the mock terrorism drill held April 11 at UCO. This is his first-hand account.
Photo by Tina Fowble
5:40 p.m. — "Welcome to hell," our host quipped as someone passed our position. The words fit the scene. Fire trucks arrived. Clouds of gray smoke came from a topless, charred, burning car parked near the section of East Hall collapsed by the blast effects from a "dirty bomb" detonated just moments ago. I stood on a patch of grass in the shadows of East Hall, near a doorway I would soon enter. About an hour earlier I entered Central Cafeteria, the staging area for the volunteer vic-
Volunteers, portraying victims, wait for first responders to rescue them during the terrorism drill April 11.
see Ground Zero page 4
Liberal Arts Student Symposium will feature NASA official J. Milton Heflin, 1966 alumnus. - Page 5