Beebe Health Practices Emergency Response Training with Delaware National Guard

LEWES, Delaware– Beebe Healthcare is partnering with the Delaware National Guard to conduct emergency event practices next week.

Starting June 7th the Hospital will practice two different emergency events with the help of 30 National Guardsmen including 3 Blackhawk  helicopter crews.

The trainings would be the first for the hospital since the start of Covid-19 pandemic.

“It’s really important to practice because you don’t want to be doing something and it’s the first time in a disaster situation,” said Beebe Healthcare training coordinator Cheryl Hopple.

The first training would take place on Monday June 7th, and involve a rescue of special needs children from a school bus crash.

“We would work through all the scenarios all the issues the kids may have, they may be non-verbal as well as their care and parent re-unification,” she said.

The second training scenario, taking place on Tuesday June 8th, would be the evacuation of the hospital in the event of a forecasted hurricane.

“The Blackhawks will be landing at another location since they can’t land at the hospital since their too big, and they will be transporting the patients, the adults, to their hangar in New Castle,” Hopple said.

Hopple wants the community to know that Beebe Healthcare will be prepared if an emergency were to strike.

“When you have something happen like this, you want people to know what they’ve gone through before, what we planned what we practiced and if you look at history it will show things go a lot better once you’ve practiced it,” she said.