Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency's Response

1. Planning and Managing the Response Finding 47: Tensions continue to be high in South Central Los Angeles. The trial of those charged with beating Reginald Denney, and the Federal trial of the officers accused of denying Rodney King his civil rights are being watched closely. The Webster Report warns that it could happen again if there is a ruling, that is perceived to be unjust by the community. Recommendation 47: LAEMSA should be involved with Los Angeles City and County efforts to prepare for a possible civil disturbance following the Federal trial of the officers involved in beating Rodney King, or following the trial of the persons charmed with beating Reginald Denney. Finding 48: The EMS response was generally consistent with the "Medical Annex" of the county's emergency and field response exercises have been held. Each of these factors contributed to the rapidity plan. LAEMSA has developed and tested a medical disaster response plan. Numerous medical response to this civil disturbance. Recommendation 48: Training and exercises should continue to have a high priority. The emphasis should continue to be on flexibility and Problem solving. Finding 49: It is difficult to predict exactly when a civil disturbance will begin, how long it will last, the number of injuries, and the extent of the damage. Intelligence about the occurrence of such events, their location and possible injuries should be shared. Recommendation 49: LAEMSA should consider taking a proactive stance when civil disturbances seem likely to occur. The agency should request confidential information about likely location, time, and level of violence from law enforcement and fire service agencies. 2. Distribution of Casualties Finding 50: LAEMSA EOC may not have known about County Sheriff or County Fire Department intelligence about the geographic direction that the civil disturbance was likely to take as it was occurring. This made it difficult to distribute casualties among hospitals. Recommendation 50: Law enforcement and fire service agencies should immediately forward intellicence developed about im the seriousness and probable geographic direction of the civil disturbance to LAEMSA' County EOC representative. Consideration should be given to establishing radio links with EMS command posts in the area to gain intelligence about injuries. This information could be used to alert hospitals, shift ambulance and other resources providers, and to prepare public service announcements (see Appendix C for a proposed tracking system). 3. EMS Resources and Mutual Aid Finding 51: A method for rapidly obtaining EMS field and hospital supplies from county public and private resources has not been developed. A regional medical mutual aid system has not been fully developed, planned for, and tested. Recommendation 51: LAEMSA should develop a logistics system that includes means for rapidly obtaining, EMS field and hospital supplies, including prescription drugs for the public, and means for delivering them where they are needed. Private medical supply companies located in the county may be willing to establish a resources coordination committee. The existing LADHS Patient Transport System could be used for transport. The current Regional Disaster Medical/Health coordinator position should be revitalized resulting in the development of workable mutual aid agreements. The existing Regional Disaster Medical/Health mutual aid agreements in OES Region 6 could serve as a model. Once these agreements are reached they should be fully tested. Another alternative is to work closely with Southern California Hospital Council to develop a mutually acceptable method for obtaining resources. Finding 52: Hospitals and other agencies experienced difficulties transporting personnel to their respective operations. Recommendation 52: The "Medical Annex" clearly assigns the responsibility for transporting medical personnel to DHS Patient Transport Service. This service should be integrated into the civil disturbance response plan, including provisions for their immediate protection. Finding 53: Clinics, community health centers, freestanding emergency clinics and other existing community resources that could have treated casualties were not polled to determine their status or capabilities. Recommendation 53: A method should be developed for quickly polling clinics, health centers, freestanding emergency clinics and other existing community resources to determine their status and response capabilities. While they may not have been available for this event, significant numbers of casualties will converge for care for other types of events as was experienced during the Loma Prieta earthquake. 4. Communications Finding 54: LAEMSA should work closely with HCSC to update the system to allow sufficient data collection flexibility for reporting critical data for any disaster. (See the hospital response portion of the report for further recommendations.) Recommendation 54: Existing hospital data reporting systems are not flexible enough to collect other than earthquake related information. 5. LAEMSA Emergency Operations Center Finding 55: The existing LADHS EOC appears to be inadequate in terms of space, equipment, communications, status boards, and other essentials to provide the necessary support for staff seeking to manage a medical response to a major disaster. Recommendation 55: Existing recommendations for upgrading the LADHS EOC should be reviewed based on this event, and, implemented.

Medical Care for the Injured

Continue to Emergency Medical Services Authority Response and Operations

Return to the Table of Contents