The old adage practice makes perfect was the purpose of a multi-dimensional emergency management exercise held by the City of Pembroke last Wednesday.
The exercise, which involved various emergency resources, from the Pembroke Fire Department (PFD) to the County of Renfrew Paramedic Service, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), and the Pembroke Regional Hospital (PRH), was a simulation of a chemical leak at the Pembroke Memorial Centre (PMC) that took months of planning.
“I’m extremely happy with it,” PFD Chief Scott Selle said. “We did take a lot of things away to work on which is good. That’s what we wanted.
“All in all, I thought the people involved performed at a really high level and the buy-in from everybody involved was really fantastic,” he added.
Chief Selle, who was the Community Emergency Management Coordinator (CEMC), said the province has mandated an exercise be done every year on a five-year cycle, and this year was the year to have their full-scale exercise.
“We bring in as many partners as we can and deploy resources,” he explained.
He established a committee in 2025 to develop the exercise, adding it was decided to plan something different for this one. The committee included the chief, Colleen Sauriol, Director of Planning for Pembroke and the alternate CEMC, Joe Brown, Sarah Walsh from Parks and Rec, Ashley Perrier, from the city, Matt Cruchet and Steve Osipenko from the paramedic service, Rachelle Robertson from PRH, Captain Gary Lowe from the PFD, and UOV OPP Detachment Commander Chris Miller.
“We decided we were going to try something that allowed us to exercise our response to a chemical leak at the PMC which is something we needed to develop with the parks and rec department. And that was on our own really, between fire and rec, that is something that we wanted to work out.
“Then we brought in the paramedics who got to exercise their mass casualty response, and I believe they tried a few new programs and procedures that they’ve been working on the last little while. So, they got to test those out.”
In addition, PRH staff also incorporated their mass casualty protocols in the Emergency Department. The committee announced the exercise well in advance to alert residents.
“We try to make the area as safe as possible, because we were closing streets and crossing streets,” he said. “The last thing we need to do is have someone struck by a vehicle.”
Chief Selle thanked the students from L’Equinox and Bishop Smith High School who volunteered to act as the victims. There was a total of 25 victims, with various degrees of injuries, 15 of whom were transported for treatment. No one was fatally injured.
“It was a real-life scenario with situations that we, the paramedics, the hospital and the OPP could be dealing with on any given day. We also stood up our Emergency Control Group, and there was a lot of things we wanted to work on internally with that group, and that was mainly the notification process, that needs to be ironed out, as well as our communication process.”
That group was located at the fire hall and was in constant communication with the incident command team on site located in the overflow parking lot at the PMC, where the victims were being triaged, treated and transported.
“Everything flowed into the command table on site, then up to the CEMC,” Chief Selle explained, reiterating the importance of practicing situations like this. “When it comes game time, you want to make sure you know what you’re doing and everything’s in place.”
CAO Impressed
City CAO David Unrau was very impressed with what he witnessed with the control group that included Mayor Ron Gervias and other members of city staff.
“It was just tremendous,” he remarked. “I was really happy with the team at the city and then the extended team with regards to the paramedics, the firefighters, the OPP, dispatch.
“It was really reassuring and I think the residents, not only in Pembroke but throughout the county, should be proud of the team that is out there protecting them in regard to situations where they’ll be the most vulnerable in emergency situations,” he added. “I thought the exercise went very well.”
One of the things they tried to focus on was the communication required, which he felt was done quite well through the information/communications officer. He paid kudos to the organizing committee for their work, saying they did a tremendous job in making it as real as possible.
“It was nice that each one of us were at the table to practice part of our plan,” he stated.