Cheyenne Hospital Officials Plan For Emergencies

The Emergency Manager for Cheyenne Regional Medical Center says CRMC officials plan and practice for a wide range of emergency scenarios, including armed attacks such as the recent Orlando shootings.

Candis Pickard also says hospital officials look at specific events and try to envision how they would respond locally. She says in the case of the Orlando shootings, the large number of victims would require CRMC to call on hospitals across Wyoming and northern Colorado to deal with the sheer number of victims.

Pickard says that could include life-flighting victims to other hospitals simply because the Cheyenne hospital doesn't have the capacity to treat 50 plus injured people all at once. Pickard says that while many people may not think such a large scale event is likely in Cheyenne "We don't have the luxury of assuming that."

She says CRMC maintains close relationships with other hospitals just in case that kind of cooperation is needed someday.

She says the hospital also practices and plans for dealing with natural disasters such as tornadoes and floods and even outbreaks of rare diseases such as the Ebola virus.

Another recent drill involved how to respond if an active shooter attacked the hospital itself. Pickard says many of the drills involve not only CRMC employees, but members of the Cheyenne Police Department, Cheyenne firefighters and local ambulance services, among others.

Pickard says that while it is impossible to know exactly what disasters could strike the area, she feels confident the hospital is doing everything possible to be ready and to respond quickly to whatever may happen.