More than 400 active duty and civilian staff from Naval Health Clinic Lemoore (NHCL) joined millions of others around the world on Oct. 19 when they participated in the annual earthquake drill – the Great ShakeOut.

“NHCL practiced earthquake safety and other aspects of emergency planning to support national emergency management initiatives,” said Karl Kassner, NHCL’s emergency manager. “Participating in the Great Shakeout earthquake exercise provides us with a yearly opportunity for healthcare organizations of all sizes to prepare staff and patients for being safe during earthquakes.”

The clinic’s scenario included an initial earthquake with minor building damage followed by a significant aftershock with a fire and an order to evacuate the building, however there was a new twist in this year’s scenario. Staff members had to react to a simulated, active patient in the main operating room.

“We learned the ambulatory procedure unit (APU) and main operating room (MOR) work very well together to accomplish our goal of evacuating a patient during a surgery,” said Lt. Cmdr. Christina Westbrook, a perioperative nurse stationed at NHCL. “We executed a patient transfer from the operating room safely. We also included a touch of personality to the exercise, our patient, Mr. Bones was a great and willing participant.”

A few mannequins – affectionally known as “Rescue Randy” – were strategically placed around the clinic. These mannequins provided participants lifelike victim handling, transportation, and extrication training.

The exercise concluded with evaluators and the incident management team gathering to share lessons learned from the training event.

“The APU and MOR team did an amazing job of working together,” said Hospital Corpsman First Class Shane Upton, a safety and emergency team observer. “The team also identified supplies that could be useful if this scenario was a real-world event.”

The Great ShakeOut, which began in California, is designed as an opportunity to practice how to be safer during earthquakes. According to the organizer’s website, more than 57 million people around the world participated in this year’s event.

Naval Health Clinic Lemoore, co-located with Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command Lemoore ensures the readiness of its active-duty service members and improves the lives of military families through the delivery of high-quality healthcare to over 18,000 eligible beneficiaries at Naval Air Station (NAS) Lemoore, California and NAS Fallon, Nevada. The command also provides dental care and medical administrative support to Navy, Marine Corps, and international students at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), Defense Language Institute and the Center for Information Dominance in Monterey, California. The command’s mission is to advance the readiness and health of our warfighters and beneficiaries and invest in our people and partnerships.