GEORGETOWN, SC (WBTW) – Transporting patients to emergency care was an issue in the aftermath of the Orlando shooting.
Some of the injured had to be taken to the hospital in pick up trucks because there weren’t enough ambulances.
“It makes you go back and think about, what if it happened locally? Do we have those response plans in place?” said Georgetown County Emergency Management Director Sam Hodge.
Emergency workers in Georgetown County are currently equipped with the ambubus kit. The kits transform a bus into a mass evacuation transport vehicle for injured people. One ambubus vehicle will free up six ambulances during an evacuation, but there is no bus equipped and on standby.
“It would be great to have a tool like that in case you have a scene like you did in Orlando, where you need to bring a large amount of people to the hospital,” said Hodge.
It takes over an hour to put together, so the main focus has been on being ready in case of hurricanes, when there is more time to prepare.
“It’s kind of prohibitive because it takes such amount of time to put it in, but if we had a vehicle that we had completely installed in there and ready to go,” said Hodge.
Georgetown County received a set in 2014, and another this year. The kits are used in training exercises, and have not been utilized in any real life situations.
“It would be key to have that, installed ready to go. Some of our neighboring county’s have some of the buses already available so they are available, but it may take 30-45 minutes to get to Georgetown,” said Hodge.
Hodge hopes to secure a bus to be fully equipped, full-time in the next year.
