AUBURN -- The Cayuga County Sheriff's Office says one person remains in critical condition at University Hospital, after Wednesday’s fatal accident involving an ARC bus, on route 34, in the Town of Fleming. The man's name, is not being released, but deputies say he was a passenger on the bus. The driver of the other vehicle, Robert Lindgren, is also listed in fair condition at University Hospital. One elderly woman, was killed on the bus.
Twelve of the 15 injured in Wednesday’s crash were taken to Auburn Memorial Hospital, and 8 of them were treated in the emergency room.
The hospital says it does have a plan in place for mass casualty situations, which is classified as an incident where more than 5 people are injured. Wednesday, the hospital says it had to use it. It says 2 doctors were working the ER Wednesday afternoon. One was designated to continue helping patients that were already there and needed medical attention. The other doctor was diverted to treating the 8 crash victims that ended up in the ER, many of which had intellectual disabilities.
“The patients that came in all had their own individual challenges above and beyond the accident that they happened to be involved in yesterday. And for us, we would normally see those patients on a day-to-day basis but because of the volume of patients coming in and because we already had a full ER functioning, we wanted to make sure we had enough skilled staff to give them individual attention,” said Auburn Memorial Hospital ER Nurse Manager Barbara Perkins.
The hospital says it does drills several times a year, so it is prepared for mass casualty situations like this.
“We deal with mass casualties on a lower level, we get 5 patients on a regular basis. When we determined there were 5 to 7 and some entrapment, we started looking around and seeing more and more people, and then we were up to 13. We knew we were well over our limit and we had a lot of work to do,” said Cayuga County EMS Director Brian Dahl.
Emergency workers say Wednesday went smoothly, in part, because everyone worked together well and responded quickly to the scene.
The investigation into the crash is continuing.
