On the scene as the U.S. Army conducts drills in Philly to train for ‘America’s worst day’
The military and first responders, along with actors playing injured civilians, held drills in South Philadelphia this week to practice their response in the event the city came under attack.
It would be a worst-case scenario.
A hypersonic missile traveling more than five times the speed of sound had hit Lincoln Financial Field, obliterating it and leaving a pile of rubble where the stadium used to be. The SEPTA NRG Station across the parking lot had collapsed from the blast, trapping seven adults and two children underground.
As the Thursday morning sun bore down on the Philadelphia Sports Complex, two members of the Philadelphia Police Department’s Counterterrorism Unit, donning royal blue hazmat suits and respirator masks, marched down the stairs of the station at Broad Street and Pattison Avenue.
Minutes after they disappeared underground, the duo emerged, carrying a casualty, quickly pushing the victim on a conveyor belt through a decontamination tent to cleanse them of the poisonous chlorine gas that had settled in the bowels of the subway station.
But the work wasn’t done. The duo briefed their incident commander, Fire Battalion Fire Chief John Narkin, and told him they needed more help. They needed resources they didn’t have.
The sound of a Black Hawk helicopter chopping through the atmosphere announced reinforcements. As it touched down, six soldiers from the Army’s National Guard Task Force 46 disembarked and were briefed on the situation.
They, too, plunged into the subway’s darkness, searching for more survivors, hoping to save them in time.
The grim scenario that played out Thursday was not real. All the casualties were mannequins or actors wearing makeup to simulate injuries as part of an ambitious training exercise for hundreds of military service members and first responders that played out in different locations around Philadelphia this week.
» READ MORE: The U.S. Army is running drills in Philadelphia this week
The United States Army National Guard Task Force 46 — a specialized homeland security unit that could only be activated by a presidential declaration— partnered with Philadelphia first responders and five city hospitals to simulate an attack on home soil by a country with similar military capabilities.
“We’re talking America’s worst day,” said Lt. Col. Brian Higgins, who oversaw the exercise Thursday at the NRG Station.
The Dense Urban Terrain (DUT) exercises began Tuesday and were also held at the Navy Yard, the Fire Academy, and a CSX railroad. The operation involved 400 members of the United States Army, National Guard, and Coast Guard and 150 members of Philadelphia Fire, Police, Office of Emergency Management, FEMA, and five local hospitals.
The planning had started months prior, said Narkin, branch director for the NRG Station portion for the exercise, with Task Force 46 members getting to know the city’s first responders and forging relationships that would help them navigate the city.
“If I’m going to learn from someone, who better to learn from than the people who work in this environment,” said Higgins.
After unloading from Black Hawk helicopters, members of the task force marched to Narkin, taking notes on the situation. With quiet efficiency, the soldiers unloaded equipment, set up stretchers for the other victims, and donned their hazmat suits.
One soldier calibrated the multiRAE chemical detectors that his colleagues would need to test the air underground. As six soldiers squeezed into their suits, others checked every potential leakage point.
Joined by a trauma surgeon from Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, the crew went down into the subway station. One soldier periodically called out the parts per million of the chlorine gas in the air. Another checked on a victim on a bench on the platform.
Soon, the surgeon and a soldier found a victim whose leg had been caught between a stalled subway train and the platform. In seconds, they cut open the victim’s clothing and applied a tourniquet to the victim’s leg to stop the bleeding.
Rushing past the onlookers, the crew loaded the victim onto a stretcher and carried them upstairs into the simmering heat of the parking lot for decontamination. They tagged the victim as a level 1 casualty, a person who had sustained the most severe injuries and needed immediate evacuation.
The victim was loaded onto a helicopter and taken to Penn Presbyterian.
At the Navy Yard minutes away, a large lot had been turned into a triage, with more than six olive drab tents set up to decontaminate people that had been injured in the missile’s explosion and contaminated by the chlorine gas released.
Soldiers wearing sealed grey hazmat suits and turquoise boots loaded mannequins onto stretchers and conveyor belts for decontamination before loading them into medical treatment.
Soldiers corralled the injured who could walk, many whom had shrapnel wounds and blood running down their faces, calling for loved ones and growing restless as they waited. One woman clutched her chest, her eyes downcast. Another man paced back and forth, arguing with the soldiers who directed him back in line.
“I need some help”
“I’m in pain!”
“I can’t find my son!”
Many in the group of actors who played injured people said they’d heard of the exercise through a Craigslist ad and tried their best to imagine what it would be like to live through a major disaster.
Juliette Valdez, an acting student at Playhouse West, said she tried to get in the mind of a victim, imagining how she would feel.
“You just get emotional from the thought of it,” said Valdez.