Barstow Community Hospital to Participate in Statewide Golden Guardian Disaster Exercise

Barstow, Calif.—Barstow Community Hospital will participate in the Golden Guardian statewide disaster exercise, the nation's largest state-sponsored emergency preparedness exercise, on November 13, 2008.  Golden Guardian 2008 focuses on a simulated catastrophic 7.8 magnitude earthquake on the southern portion of the San Andreas Fault. Golden Guardian 2008 coincides with emergency preparedness drill on the same day -- the Great Southern California ShakeOut, which uses the same scenario.

Barstow Community Hospital's exercise will begin at 10 a.m. on Thursday, November 13, in response to a simulated large earthquake resulting in major structural damage to the hospital’s 100 wing. The exercise will include a medical surge drill using nurses and doctors to triage 20-30 mass casualties arriving (volunteer patients from Barstow High School) in the parking lot in support of the hospital's emergency department. Other exercise scenarios will include loss of communications, utility impacts (generator failure, loss of water and natural gas supply), people trapped in the elevator, food and blood supply impacted and other events that the hospital staff will have to mitigate.

"It’s not if a major earthquake will impact us, but when,” said Michael Stewart, Barstow Community Hospital CEO. “Exercises such as the Golden Guardian allows us to practice our response to major disasters and better prepares our emergency managers for the inevitable decisions that must be made in real time when a true disaster occurs,” added Stewart.

Golden Guardian 2008 is the fifth in a series designed and facilitated by the California Homeland Security Training and Exercise Program, (HSTEP) a multi-disciplinary unit contained within the Governor's Office of Homeland Security. It is mandated and funded under federal Department of Homeland Security guidelines.

“The benefit of a statewide disaster drill is testing readiness requiring multi-agency response. This type of exercise allows us to enhance communication and coordination between hospitals, San Bernardino County Emergency Operations Center and the Department of Public Health, the City of Barstow’s emergency operations center, and other agencies,” said Susan Biewend, Barstow Community Hospital emergency preparedness director.

Golden Guardian continues to be the largest state-sponsored, coordinated exercise in the nation. The goal of Golden Guardian 2008 is to better coordinate the activities of city, county, State and federal governments, first responders, volunteer organizations and the private sector to deter, prevent, prepare for, respond to, recover from, and minimize the effects of a terrorist attack or catastrophic natural disaster. Golden Guardian 2008 will include more than 4000 participants representing more than 100 local, state and federal agencies including the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, Imperial, San Bernardino, and their cities.

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