Douglas Spencer
Douglas Spencer, Oglethorpe County’s administrator for the emergency management agency, has run two smaller mass casualty exercises in preparation for the larger simulation planned for Saturday.
Spencer prepared volunteer bus drivers, first responders and students, among others, for their roles in the exercise, which will simulate a multi-vehicle collision between a school bus and other vehicles between 10 a.m. and noon at the student transportation center, near Oglethorpe County Elementary School.
For example, students from the Oglethorpe County High School’s Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) program will serve as the victims in the crash.
The students will be provided with identification cards that specify their injuries in order for medical staff and other responders to give the proper care.
“I hope that I can show value to the school system and to the elected officials that this is the purpose of EMA,” Spencer said. “To look at these things and figure out how we’re going to respond to it before we actually have to and end up making it up as we go along.”
The event is closed to the public and Spencer said the hope is that the volunteers, first responders and officials will learn from the exercise so they can relay that information to members of the community.
Additionally, the EMA will report its findings to county and school system officials.
Spencer has been in the first responder field since 2009, when he started volunteering with the Lexington Fire Department. He also occasionally works as an EMT so that he can keep himself “grounded with the people that are in Oglethorpe that are doing public safety every day,” he said.
Spencer became the EMA director in 2014 when Billy Pittard, the former chairman of the Oglethorpe County Commission, approached him about the position. They decided Spencer would play more of an administrative role than a hands-on role.
“It’s kind of evolved into a strategic planning model,” he said. “More so than well, at two o’clock in the morning we’ve got something going on, so I should be standing out on the side of the road somewhere.”
Spencer said he has to balance his time between the EMA and his day job as an engineer at the Southeastern Power Administration, which also requires administrative work.
He has learned to connect these two roles in order to share helpful resources with both organizations, such as computer knowledge, which helped him revise EMA technology, like the 911 system.
Spencer said he hopes that EMA can become more of a resource to Oglethorpe County residents in a time of crisis.
“EMA is more of a resource, not much of a response,” he said.