Local Emergency Medical Task Force Members Prepare for New Mexico Exercise

HOUSTON - March 9, 2015 - PRLog -- Ten members of Texas Emergency Medical Task Force (EMTF) 6 are gearing up for a full-scale exercise in New Mexico later this month. The volunteer team, based out of the southeast Texas area, will be partnering with personnel from each of Texas’ eight EMTF Regions to deploy a Mobile Medical Unit to support the 26th annual Bataan Memorial Death March at White Sands Missile Range, about an hour north of El Paso. The march is a 26.2-mile trek through the high desert terrain of the missile range, conducted in honor of the heroic service members who defended the Philippine Islands during World War II. In prior years, the Mobile Medical Unit has treated upwards of 700 patients over the course of the daylong event.

The Southeast Texas Regional Advisory Council, or SETRAC, is the lead agency for EMTF-6. “Our EMTF teams regularly meet and train to be prepared for deployment to catastrophic emergency incidents,” says Mark Sastre, EMTF Coordinator for SETRAC. “This exercise is a great way to polish our skills as well as provide a valuable service to the men and women committing themselves to this intense course in memory of the fallen heroes from 1942.”

The Texas EMTF program is a coordinated network of local medical resources that are rapidly deployable in the event of a regional or state disaster or large scale incident. When activated, the task force increases local medical surge capacity by providing emergency medical transport, hospital surge staffing, and mobile medical units. This is made possible in large part through Texas hospitals, fire departments, and emergency medical services departments, who maintain and house EMTF assets, and deploy personnel and resources when called upon. As the most intricate component of the EMTF program, the mobile medical units are modular, field-deployable facilities staffed by EMTF physicians, nurses, paramedics, and technicians capable of providing emergency medical care and stabilization in austere environments.

“The member agencies and personnel of EMTF have really embraced the concept of ‘One Team’,” says Brian Bayani, Chief of Northwest EMS in Tomball and a Task Force Leader for EMTF-6. “It’s a remarkable thing to be able to bring together resources from across the state to help our fellow Texans and our neighboring communities when needed.”

For more information on EMTF-6, visit www setrac.org.