CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Smoke poured from a wrecked dump truck, three pedestrians lay still on the sidewalk, and a new CityLynx Gold Line streetcar sat in the road, shifted from its tracks.
Firefighters, police and MEDIC responded as dozens of bystanders from Charlotte Area Transit stood on the sidewalk and watched the action unfold.
Relax, this is only a drill.
“Since this is a new mode of rail out in the streets,” said CATS CEO John Muth of the streetcar, “we wanted to get together and have a practice on how we would respond.”
The emergency exercise in front of Novant Presbyterian’s uptown hospital shut down Elizabeth Avenue and Hawthorne Lane while crews prepared the scene of the wreck and carried out the drill.
In the scenario, a dump truck collided with a streetcar, then ran into a traffic signal control box on the corner where pedestrians had been standing.
The scene involved 27 victims in all, including fire department rescue dummies as props. They took the part of the pedestrians injured by the truck, including the scenario’s lone fatality.
Another perched behind the wheel of the dump truck, and one was posed as a likely spinal injury on the streetcar.
Firefighters responded as they would if the scene were real, followed by MEDIC. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officers controlled traffic along with Novant’s public safety detail.
An added concern for first responders if this scenario had been real– the streetcar’s power source of overhead electrified lines.
“We would shut down the power in the area of the incident first,” said Muth.
He said the drill appeared to go smoothly, since its goal was to practice and learn.
“We wanted to make sure we could take care of victims, get them safely off the vehicle, secure the area, and do whatever we can to make things better,” he said.
Garret MacIntyre was one of the young actors who played a victim on the streetcar, riding with his older brother and parents. Since he does community theater, he brought his own makeup – including fake blood for his head injury.
“Mine was pretty severe,” he said. “They put a neck brace on.”
He admits watching the first responders do their work made the situation feel very real.
“I was scared because they were with their big bulky suits,” he said, “They looked like they were in a real fire.”
Lessons aside, Garret’s older brother summed the drill from a participant’s point of view:
“It was really cool to see it all fold out,” he said, “and to know if this were a real fire or accident, they would be there.”
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