[InHam] An ARES group is part of a new Discovery Channel documentary, Critical Rescue.

Mon, 10 Feb 2003 21:48:10 -0500

Date: Sat, 08 Feb 2003 02:28:37 -0000

NEWINGTON, CT, Feb 7, 2003--An ARES group that recently received the ARRL
National Certificate of Merit is part of a new Discovery Channel
documentary, Critical Rescue. In an episode entitled "Fateful Journey,"
members of the Hospital Disaster Support Communications System (HDSCS) of
Orange County, California, are featured responding to the head-on train
collision in Brea, California, that killed two people and injured 160 others
on April 23, 2002.

Critical Rescue is a new documentary series of hour-long programs featuring
rescue workers and those who support them--including Amateur Radio
operators--saving lives in large and small disasters. The series makes its
debut next month.

Episode 2, titled "Fateful Journey," recounts the true story of a morning of
emergency response training for HDSCS members that turned into a day of real
tragedies and rescues after two trains collide. "Fateful Journey" is
scheduled for its first broadcast in prime time on February 20.

The accident was caused when a freight train collided head-on with a
Metrolink double-decker commuter train. The accident occurred just as
hospitals and emergency responders in Orange County were about to hold a
large-scale drill to test patient triage and transportation procedures for
mass casualty incidents. HDSCS had 28 members awaiting assignments when word
came in of the train collision.

Orange County ARES Emergency Coordinator and HDSCS Net Control April Moell,
WA6OPS, immediately assigned the drill-ready hams to the 14 hospitals
expected to receive crash victims. Net traffic included verifying victim
dispatch and patient counts, providing hospitals with information for
inquiring family members and liaison with hams supporting the Red Cross.
Within some hospitals, hams provided direct communication among triage
areas, emergency departments and command posts. HDSCS is a specialty group
of the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES). It was formed in 1979 with
the specific mission of providing backup communications that are critical to
patient care.

Orange County Assistant EC and HDSCS member Joe Moell, K0OV, said that for
the documentary, a team from New Dominion Pictures, an independent
production company under contract to Discovery Networks, spent a half-day
with HDSCS last August. They interviewed April Moell and taped reenactments
of communications that took place during the HDSCS emergency net of April
23.

Additional HDSCS operators videotaped or audiotaped for possible use in the
Discovery program were Sam Creason, K6EW; Cheryl Simpson, KD6MWZ; Ralph
Swanson, WB6JBI and David Mofford, W7KTS. On other days, the producers taped
reenactments of victim triage, treatment and transport at the Placentia
crash site and at least two hospitals. It is not known how much of the HDSCS
footage will appear in the edited program.

Scheduled airings of "Fateful Journey" are at 8 and 11 PM Eastern and
Pacific times on February 20, and at 2 PM on February 22 (Eastern and
Pacific). The Discovery Channel is the second most widely distributed cable
network in the United States, with over 85 million subscribers.

Dan Evans K9ZF
Scottsburg, IN 47170
{EM78}
K9ZF /R no budget Rover
ex-N9RLA
Check out the Rover Resource Page at:
http://www.qsl.net/n9rla
QRP-l #1269
IN-Ham list administrator

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