Grand Rapids Mock Disaster Drill
On May 5, 2012, Davenport University held a large scale disaster scenario. It looked like a horrific plane crash. Clothing, luggage, debris and bloodied victims - some still strapped in their seats - were strewn across the W.A. Lettinga Campus and into the woods. Volunteers and emergency personnel hurriedly moved into action following alarming news of a 90-passenger commercial "airplane" crash at DU. The imitation plane was actually an old bus encased in a fuselage with wings.
The disaster scenario, the largest of its kind ever practiced at a DU campus, consisted of more than 100 volunteer "victims", area law enforcement agencies and emergency health care personnel. Local emergency responder teams fully deployed their equipment and personnel to practice their response, including tracking dogs and underwater dive teams.
The event, funded through a Department of Homeland Security grant, was used to play out how local emergency personnel, as well as the community at large, would be affected and how they would respond to a large scale disaster.
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