PA Strike Team Region 4

On Friday Aug 29, 2008 the Pennsylvania EMS Strike was activated by the Department of Health to deploy to Louisiana to assist with medical operations and evacuations from an upcoming Hurricane named Gustav.  Baldwin EMS personnel  Paramedic Chris Rud, EMT Dan Federico, Paramedic Rob Fry and Paramedic Michael Dziki joined the rest of the states team to deploy.  Baldwin EMS crew met with other members of the Region 4 team consisting of EMSI, Mon Valley EMS, Fayette EMS, Noga EMS, Lower Kiski, Medic Rescue and Priority One EMS at 10 pm later that night.  Each service with at least four personnel.  Other Regional teams from EMMCO, Meadville EMS and Clarion Hospital met with team to depart. The Region 4 team then departed Pennsylvania on their for Louisiana.  Team then commuted in a convey for 24 hours, team arrived in Louisiana late Saturday night where they met the rest of the Pennsylvania team all together totaling over 60 vehicles with over 250 personnel.  That night the team went to the LSU Agriculture center in Alexandria LA.  Crews began to work on site by setting up field tents, portable lightening and generators.  At the current time Hurricane Gustav was over Cuba registering as a Cat. 4 Hurricane with a path predicted to strike Louisiana.  New Orleans was under a mandatory evacuation that all residents had to be out of the city by 6 pm on Sunday.  Crews that night began to run missions to New Orleans to assist with evacuations of Hospitals.  Critical Patients were transported to Airport to be transported by airplanes.  As the Hurricane approached the team stood by at the LSU Agricultural center which was used as a shelter.  After Gustav passed the team then departed to assist in the town of Thibodaux LA. it was told to crews that this was the town in which Gustav made landfall.  Some members of the team remained in Alexandria due to the shelter having technical problems.  The crew stood by to provide the shelter with HVAC units when the shelter lost its AC units after the Storm.  The Rest of the Team arrived in Thibodaux and set up a Medic center at the local high school.  There was not many injuries reported in Thibodaux and later that day the team departed Thibodaux and headed for Baton Rouge to evacuate ICU Pt from Lane Memorial Medical Center in Zachary LA.  That night the team evacuated 60 ICU Pts from the hospital due to the hospital having power loss.  The hospital staff was more than welcoming to the crew by allowing the team to sleep the night at the hospital and provided food for the crews the next day.  The next day the team was directed by Louisiana to continue operations around Baton Rouge.  The First Baptist Church of Zachary was grateful enough to allow the team to set up camp in their auxiliary gym for the remainder of the deployment.  Once the team was settled in at the Church the crews began to rotate two man crews per truck in 12 hour rotations.  While crews were on duty they staged at local hospitals, shelters or were deployed to other parts of the states to transport Pts.  Some emergency calls were handled as well.  During down time the crews assisted the church and local residents.  Crews assisted with cleaning up debris around the church as well as local yards.  A tree was removed from the roadway nearby and an uprooted tree at the church was given new life when personnel placed the tree back into an upright position.  The Team then was released by Louisiana the morning of Sept 7 and began on new journey home.  The Team arrived back in Pennsylvania on Sept 8 after staying the night before in Jackson Tenn.

Pennsylvania Strike Team

Deployed to Louisiana