City of Peoria Press Release
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Peoria Firefighter Helps New York Hurricane Victims
Peoria Fire Captain/Paramedic Mark Rolland was sent to New York for a two-week deployment with Arizona’s Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT AZ-1) to assist the victims of Hurricane Sandy.
12/6/2012
On November 12th, Peoria Fire Captain/Paramedic Mark Rolland was sent to New
York for a two-week deployment with Arizona’s Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT
AZ-1) to assist the victims of Hurricane Sandy. This marked the largest
deployment of DMAT resources in its history, even larger than the response to
Hurricane Katrina.
The team was tasked with providing medical care at a 1,200 bed shelter at
Nassau Community College in Nassau County, New York. The mission had three
components; to operate a clinic for those displaced by the storm and the general
public, to create a special needs/critical care unit for patients who were
already under constant medical care, and develop an isolation unit to deal with
and contain contagious viruses such as the stomach flu.
Disaster Medical Assistance Teams are part of the National Disaster Medical
System and operate under the Department of Health and Human Services to provide
medical assistance when local resources are overwhelmed. Team members are not
full-time federal employees; they are primarily professionals in the field of
medicine, or similar public safety and logistical fields that respond to natural
or man-made disasters.
Captain Rolland and the majority of the team returned on November 24th. This
is not Captain Rolland’s first deployment, he went with the team to help after
Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Gustav.
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