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Students prepare for disaster


Photo
DAVID HARDEN/Arizona Daily Wildcat
Members from the Tucson Fire Department HAZMAT team help to put a role player into a decontamination suit after the student was exposed to a white powder as part of an emergency readiness drill held yesterday in front of the Communication building.
By Dana Crudo
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
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Police, ASUA hope campus disaster drill will increase awareness of university

At 9:03 a.m. yesterday, a fire alarm sounded in the Communication building, signaling the start of the opening scene of UA's disaster drill.

Matt Harris, an Arizona Students of the University of Arizona senator, covered in white powder, pumped the stomach of an unconscious student while yelling phrases like "Holy cow, he is dead or something" and "I need some help," following his script for the first scene of yesterday's four-hour disaster drill.

Foot powder, a cold shower and stomach pumping were all part of Harris' day yesterday as he played "Peter Paramedic," who was supposed to try frantically to resuscitate his unconscious pledge brother.

He only had minutes to prepare for the drill.

"I know when I get angry I curse and scream at officers," Harris said.

In the end, Harris opted to leave out any bad words while he role-played.

"I decided not to curse. Good, uncorrupted kids might be watching this," he said.

ASUA Sen. Sara Birnbaum got into her role as a hysterical secretary as she stood in front of various TV cameras, cried over the dead student and blamed herself for his death.

At another moment, she was pestering police officers.

"It was an interesting experience. It was fun to yell at cops without getting in trouble," Birnbaum said.

After fruitless attempts to save his friend, Harris was taken away to an isolated area for students contaminated by the powder.

"It doesn't smell like anything I have smelled before," Harris said as he tried to shake the powder from his shirt.

Photo
DAVID HARDEN/Arizona Daily Wildcat
UAPD officer Frank Romero checks for a pulse on UA student Bobby Carlson during an emergency readiness drill in the Communications building yesterday.

He continued playing his role, asking officers what the stuff was and shouting that he didn't want to die.

Police officers eventually told Harris to calm down and stop smelling the powder.

After the commotion was over, Harris had time to reflect on his first performance as a role player. He said it would have been easier to role-play if there had been more screaming girls because then it would have been more realistic.

"It was weird. I didn't really know when I was supposed to be freaking out. It was confusing," Harris said.

Other senators said that some of it seemed real, but other times it just wasn't realistic.

"It was a little undefined. It was hard to get into when not everyone was in it," ASUA Sen. Morgan Kisler said. "I don't think you would normally leave a dead person outside for that long."

Bobby Carlson, an economics junior who played the role of a dead student named John Paul Jones, was the unsung hero of the drill because he had to lie in front of the Communication building for two hours, UAPD Cmdr. Brian Seastone said.

Seastone, who led the disaster drill, said that in the future the University of Arizona Police Department would have to improve communication with students affected by the disaster.

As students waited more than 40 minutes for the fire department to arrive to "decontaminate" them, they broke character, discussing ASUA business instead.

When the team arrived, Harris was told that he would have to strip down and be hosed with cold water in a small orange tent. There were several people watching.

"Now I'm getting interested now that they are here. It's going to be freezing. I'm not looking forward to it," he said as he waited for the dousing.

Even after being forced to sit on the grass for a few hours and suffer through a cold shower at the end of the drill, Harris said he had a lot of fun and would do it again.

"I would have had us going a little more AWOL during the down time," he said. "It was fun, though. How often do you get to be decontaminated?"

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