Mock evacuation prepares nursing students for real-world challenges

A tornado is coming and you have only 10 minutes to evacuate the hospital unit where you work as a nurse. Could you do it? Would you know what to do?

That’s the challenge almost 200 undergraduate students in Binghamton University’s Decker School of Nursing faced during an evacuation drill in May. Held every spring, the drill is an integral part of the students’ final Practice of Nursing course.

The drill was held in the 11-bed hospital ward within the Decker School’s Innovative Simulation and Practice Center (ISPC). Students were broken into small groups and spread out over four days. Each team dealt with the same task — evacuate patients and family members to a safe location before the tornado hits. Students were assigned the role of unit nurse, patient, family member or float nurse (whose role is to assist the unit nurses with the evacuation).

Students had to prioritize their response and then move all patients into a nearby hallway while still attending to the patients’ medical needs — patients couldn’t be left unattended in the hallway, for instance. When the 10 minutes were up, the lights were turned off and anyone left in the room was considered to have perished.

The evacuation drill allowed students to practice triaging patients and helped them learn the importance of communication during an emergency. The drill illustrates to students how critical it is for nurses to know the disaster-management policies of their organization to ensure everyone follows the same plan.