JOPLIN, Mo. – With Americans horrified by footage from North Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Helene, Freeman officials recently conducted a mass casualty exercise to prep for the unthinkable should it occur in the Joplin region. 

Skip Harper, Freeman Health and Safety Officer, gave tours of Freeman’s 24-bed modular hospital on October 2. Resembling an oversized tent when stored inside its trailer, the hospital can be inflated by air and be fully functioning in just 90 minutes. 

“We’ve been planning this exercise for a while,” Harper said. “You don’t want to do this in the middle of a disaster and never walk through it or set it up. I’ve been doing this for 30 years and I’ve even learned something new today.”

In addition to the modular hospital, there was a nearby triage tent set up, capable of treating six patients at a time. Also parked nearby was a mass casualty/communications trailer Freeman received last year, offering mass satellite communication and a 5G network to allow for cellular service. In the center of the exercise area was an inflatable light tower and multiple generators.

The trailer housing the hospital can be hooked to a vehicle and towed directly to the disaster site – a tornado strike to a city, for example, a large apartment fire or a bus crash. This can be done within a matter of hours.

“Freeman is not a first-response agency,” Harper said. In the wake of a disaster, “chances are those patients are coming here to Freeman. We’re the leading trauma center for the region, and I don’t want to take our staff away from the more serious care coming here.”

Harper said staff from a healthcare coalition of statewide surgery centers, long-term care centers and outpatient surgery centers would join forces to staff the hospital and triage tent.

“If it’s needed in Lamar, Nevada or Springfield, we’ll take the facility to them, or they can come here and get it,” Harper said. “We work with local EMS and fire departments, and if we’re not available they have the access codes and keys; they can come and get the trailers and go. The whole idea behind this entire operation is to get it on-scene as fast as possible.”

The triage tent, modular hospital and mass casualty/communications trailer work in tandem to stabilize disaster patients before they are transported to Freeman West Hospital or other hospitals. The mass casualty trailer alone has adequate supplies to treat 120 victims. 

“All this is made to be used,” Harper said. “We hope to never use it. But if people need it, please reach out to me and I’ll walk you through it. It’s all about supporting the community and what Freeman does for the community.”