VANCOUVER — Last November the Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops dressed up volunteers as crash victims to test the code orange system. That practice was put to use on Thursday, when hospital officials received an emergency call telling them to expect 60 victims from a tour bus crash on the Coquihalla Highway.
“We announce overhead in the hospital that there’s a code orange being activated and that alerts the staff and physicians to begin preparing to receive additional patients,” Kris Kristjanson, health services director, told Global News. Nineteen ambulances and six air ambulances were dispersed throughout the Interior and Metro Vancouver.
Many of the victims don’t speak English, so S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Immigrant Services set up a help-line in Cantonese and Mandarin to offer assistance to friends and families.
Officials at Interior Health will be meeting soon to debrief the whole operation and evaluate its successes.
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