Dave Grovdahl, EMS Division Head, Onslow County EMS in North Carolina, joins the Disaster Podcast team to talk about his recent presentation findings surrounding his system’s preparations and response to Hurricane’s Florence and Dorian. He shares some of the key things they did to help stage EMS teams for their response during major storms and flooding.

Dave also talks about the wellness physically and mentally of his EMS crews during the multi-day events, as well as the effects the aftermath of the storms weeks and months afterward. Teams experienced stress from being staged together with their teams in close proximity for 5 days or more as well as the stress associated with 11 team members suffering near total structural losses of their homes during Florence while deployed.

In an effort to help spread the word on system and community preparedness and resilience, Dave is willing to chat with leaders in other systems about Onslow County’s planning for storms. Contact Dave by email at [email protected].

On the show this week are Disaster Podcast host, Jamie Davis, who’s joined by Kyle Nelson, our meteorologist, along with co-host Sam Bradley.

Join the Discussion

Join the discussion after the show with co-hosts Sam Bradley and Jamie Davis, the Podmedic in our Disaster Podcast Facebook Group now!

Paragon Brings “The Experience”

Paragon Medical Education Group specializes in bringing what they call “The Experience” to jurisdictions around the country. They bring together police, fire, EMS, and hospital teams to train together and learn what to expect from each diverse group in the response team so that each knows what to expect from the other and how to back the other groups up. Visit Paragon’s site at ParagonMedicalGroup.com for more information on how this can be brought into your system.