LSC Disaster Press Release

Lyndon State College
1001 College Road
Lyndonville, VT 05851
(802) 626-6200

NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT
May 4, 2010 Gwendolyn Cook
Gwendolyn.cook@lsc.vsc.edu
603-717-4137

Lyndonville, VT- Lyndon State College had a chance to practice response techniques to a campus wide food poisoning disaster on Friday, April 3. The disaster was a staged event put on as a way for journalist and psychology departments to practice how they would help both report on the event and council the traumatized victims. This was the 3rd year that journalism professor Dan Williams has planned and hosted the event and the 2nd year for psychology professor Peggy Sherrer.

The culprit in this disaster was E-coli in contaminated pineapple. The end result was over 70 students with all of the symptoms of food poisoning and two fatalities. The students who died both had compromised immune systems. One was the daughter of a faculty member.

Journalism students had to find a way to find out the cause of the disaster as well as interview key officials all while remaining professional and doing nothing that might ruin their reputation for future issues. While interviewing victims they needed to practice the gentler approach to getting the story, which is something that they would need to do in a real life situation. This was also a good way for them to familiarize themselves with working in trauma situations. Many reporters suffer a form of PTSD as a result of being at the scene of an accident. This helps them prepare for that.

Psychology students were on hand to council victims and their families while they are dealing with the aftermath of the disaster. They got to practice dealing with high stress situations as well as patients and parents that were panicked. One of the tasks that they had to deal with was keeping reporters and TV crews from only interviewing who they themselves had cleared as well as keeping them in designed areas.

"Overall, I was very pleased with the disaster exercise," Sherrer said. "In hindsight, of course, there's always things you would modify. I was very proud of my students who provided mental health support to the "victims." Sherrer was especially pleased with the volunteers who participated in the disaster drill. "I also think we had some outstanding actor-volunteers this year. I'm especially grateful to the staff and students who gave up their afternoon to help us out."