Seattle is looking forward to hosting four more World Cup matches, with the next one coming up this Wednesday, keeping local hospitals on high alert.
Medical officials say while it’s hard to think about a mass casualty situation, they must be prepared for anything that comes their way. This includes everything from a mass casualty incident to too many people falling off electric scooters.
University of Washington Professor of Pediatrics Dr. Beth Ebel said that with 1.6 million people headed to Seattle over the next few weeks, they have to be prepared.
Chief Air Medical Officer Jeff Richey said this also means local hospitals are planning ahead.
“If we had a mass casualty, how would we coordinate with those agencies to be able to bring in maximum five helicopters at one time to be able to move patients into Harborview Medical Center,” Richey said.
Harborview officials say they’ve spent years studying what goes right and wrong when tourists come to Seattle.
“We’ve had several events that have happened over the last couple of years to be able to prep us for World Cup and what we might expect,” Richey said.
For Medevac staff, this means at least 100 hours of training every year.
“What that entails is landing zone trainings and tabletop exercises for what-if scenarios to be able to do this,” Richey said.
Ebel tells us that smaller things, like the heat, can play a role in increased emergency room visits and an uptick in inexperienced people riding electric bikes and scooters.
“You expect to have a lot more of those injuries come in over the next 6-7 weeks,” Ebel said.
They tell us during the summer the emergency rooms are already full, but every hospital in the state is ready to step up if needed during the World Cup.
“Our real goal is for people to get home, get to the game, or to their job without a single problem,” Ebel said.
If you have a minor sickness or injury, hospital officials say to call your primary care doctor or a local urgent care before coming here, as wait times can be long.