Seven "patients" claiming to suffer from pneumonic plague are processed.
By: David Campbell
The emergency department at University Medical Center at Princeton took part in the statewide terror drill conducted this week.
On Wednesday morning, it processed seven "patients" claiming to suffer from pneumonic plague, said Dr. Howard Lu, medical director of occupational medicine services at UMCP.
This week’s full-scale national terrorism response exercise was mandated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. TOPOFF3 short for Top Officials began Monday and is expected to continue until this afternoon.
In it, government officials and emergency-response personnel have been called upon to respond to simulated terror attacks, including a mock biological attack in New Jersey, a chemical attack in Connecticut and simulated events in the United Kingdom and Canada. Agencies in every county in New Jersey have participated.
TOPOFF3 has involved more than 10,000 participants representing more than 200 federal, state and local agencies and groups, according to the state.
This is the third time a TOPOFF exercise has been run and the first time in New Jersey. Every hospital in the state has participated, according to a fact sheet from the New Jersey Hospital Association.
Dr. Lu said he and Nancy Panarella, director of emergency services at UMCP, were on the team at the Princeton hospital that helped plan for this week’s exercise. He said he was a referee in the emergency department when the exercise took place from 8 a.m. to noon Wednesday. He said participants and visitors at the department were aware that it was a drill and that there was no real risk of pneumonic plague.
He said seven mock patients, who were volunteers, came through the emergency department. As part of the role-playing scenario, they either had the disease, were worried they had it or had another illness that they mistook for plague. He said one of the fake patients "passed away" as part of the drill.
"I think it actually was good," Dr. Lu said. "It went quite well."
Princeton Health Officer David Henry said Princeton health officials also took part in the drill, receiving regular updates from the hospital on the incident as if it were the real thing. He said that the scenario involved victims contracting plague while patronizing the former Burger King on Nassau Street.
He said one of his office’s tasks was to follow up with the families of the mock victims or others who might have come into contact with them to make sure they sought treatment at one of the 200 emergency clinics set up throughout the state as part of the drill.
He said the scenario called for 8 million people to be vaccinated statewide, and he said the clinic he was at here in Mercer County sought to inoculate about 500 people per hour all of them volunteers, he said.
"This is a good baseline drill to just assess what we actually need to do with regard to improving public health and emergency preparedness," the Princeton health officer said.