COUNTYWIDE : Disaster Team Sees Action for First Time

Jacki Hanson had planned to spend the weekend at a wedding and jumping out of an airplane with a friend. But on a Friday evening last month, Hurricane Iniki was about to smash into the Hawaiian islands and Hanson, 59, was about to board a military transport plane bound for the devastated area.

“I am ready to go at a moment’s notice,” said Hanson, who owns a computer business in Lake Forest and is also a member of the Orange County Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT).

As the hurricane neared the islands on the night of Sept. 11, Hanson was told to be ready to leave from the Los Alamitos Armed Forces Reserve Center at 4 a.m. the next morning.

“I packed three DMAT shirts and all the underwear in the drawer,” said Hanson, who also is the director of a health clinic in Mexico. “My teen-age son told me I was crazy. He always says that about me.”

Within 24 hours, she and 12 other disaster team members landed in Honolulu, where they waited to be deployed to the ravaged area.

The county DMAT is made up of nurses, physicians and paramedics who, under federal guidance, can be quickly assembled and sent to national disaster areas. When the team is summoned, the members, including many who are on staff at UCI Medical Center in Orange and Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, temporarily leave their jobs to provide relief elsewhere.

Though the county DMAT team was formed six years ago, Hurricane Iniki was its first opportunity to go into action. Team members say the eight days in Hawaii was good preparation should a disaster occur here.

They brought medical supplies, food, water, sleeping cots and a portable generator to Hawaii. Relief efforts coordinated by the military had already begun as teams from Orange County, San Bernardino, and Seattle arrived.

The ticketing area of the Kauai airport was converted into a medical unit and air evacuation center. Members worked around the clock tending to injured people and evacuating those with medical problems greater than what they or the local hospital could handle. At the end of the 12-hour shifts, they took turns sleeping on the airport floor and eating food cooked on portable barbecue grills.

“It was fun; I actually enjoyed it,” Hanson said.

Rodger Kelley, 44, a resident of San Clemente and commanding officer of DMAT in Orange County, said his team is part of a federal network of teams whose mission is to evacuate and treat injured patients.

Kelley understands the importance of safely transporting injured patients from his experience as a field doctor in the Gulf War. He said that in the event of a major Southern California earthquake, for example, the relief teams would be responsible for moving the injured from the area.

Most critical cases, he said, are the many patients who suffer spinal cord injuries, cardiac problems or are struck by falling debris.

“If we shake here,” Kelley said, “we would expect to see teams from around the country come here in our hour of need.”

The experience in Hawaii, said Sandra Woodruff, a DMAT spinal cord specialist and nurse at UCI Medical Center, was valuable exercise in preparing team members for disasters here.