Life-Saving Rehearsals at Duke You Don’t See

From fire safety to disasters, teams at Duke practice for real-life crises so you’re protected

Three times a year, a circle of Duke staff members conduct a simple-but-crucial DukeALERT test that touches everyone at Duke.

When emergencies occur on Duke’s campus, such as severe weather, the DukeALERT notification system relays critical information to students, staff and faculty through email and text message.

To ensure it works seamlessly when needed, the system is tested each spring, summer and fall by staff members from the Duke University Police Department, the Office of Information Technology, Emergency Management and central communications offices.

Executive Director of Duke Emergency Management and Business Continuity Chloe Hallberg

It takes moments to send test message through the DukeALERT emergency notification platform. Yet, in that brief time, the entire Duke community is reached. During the test in October 2024, 104,609 emails were sent, 40,463 text messages were delivered and emergency sirens echoed across campus.

“We want to make sure all the systems work,” said Executive Director of Duke Emergency Management and Business Continuity Chloe Hallberg. “You want to make sure you’re hitting the right buttons and everything is responding the way it’s supposed to. That’s why we do the test, so when we do have real emergencies, we know what to do.”

The next DukeALERT test is set for 10 a.m. on March 5, reinforcing the ongoing need for emergency preparedness across campus.

With thousands of students, patients, staff, faculty and visitors passing through Duke each day, readiness is essential. That’s why teams regularly conduct other realistic training scenarios. Here are some other examples:

Winter Warm-Up

Duke Landscape Services team members prepare to drive a truck equipped with a snow plow at Decembers annual "Snow Rodeo" training event. Photo by Travis Stanley.
As part of the "Snow Rodeo," Duke Landscape Services team members refresh their skills on the tractors used to brush off snowy sidewalks. Photo by Travis Stanley.

On a sunny morning last December, the Landscape Services facility near Brooks Field at Wallace Wade Stadium is busy. Beefy pick-up trucks with snow plows and tractors equipped with spinning brushes circle around parking lots that are bone dry and clear.

This is Duke Facilities Management Department’s annual “Snow Rodeo,” where around 60 Landscape Services team members reacquaint themselves with equipment used to clear campus roads of snow.

“We have an experienced team here, but it’s still good to have a refresh,” said event organizer and Landscape Services Superintendent Hyra Johnson.

Throughout the morning, Equipment Operators and Horticulture Specialists cycle between classroom sessions reviewing safety procedures and mechanical quirks of the brushes, plows and salt-spreaders that attach to the work trucks and tractors used year-round. Later, team members take John Deere tractors with spinning brushes or Ford F-350s with plows on careful laps around nearby parking lots, clearing imaginary snow.

“It’s all about repetition,” said Horticulture Assistant Scott Pate. “It’s helpful to knock the rust off and refresh your memory.”

Putting Flames Out

OESO Safety Associate Kyle Goodwin helps a participant in a fire safety training session put out a simulated fire. Photo by Travis Stanley.
OESO Supervisor of Construction Projects & Automatic Fire Protection Systems Steve Stewart shows how to use a fire extinguisher during a recent safety training session. Photo by Travis Stanley.

As a former fire fighter, Kyle Goodwin knows how fire behaves.

So, at a recent training session in Duke South, as staffers from Duke labs try to put out virtual flames dancing across a knee-high screen with a simulated fire extinguisher, Goodwin, a Safety Associate with the Fire & Life Safety Division of Duke’s Occupational & Environmental Safety Office (OESO), has solid advice.

“You’re aiming a little bit high,” Goodwin said to one participant as flames on the screen slowly grew. “If you aim at the base, you’ll put the fire right out.”

Several times a month, Goodwin and Steve Stewart, OESO’s Supervisor of Construction Projects & Automatic Fire Protection Systems, hold fire safety training sessions teaching Duke employees how to use the fire extinguishers. The Fire & Life Safety Office offers fire extinguisher training sessions for students, staff and faculty upon request for groups of 10-or-more.

During the training, Stewart shows participants how to pull the pin on a fire extinguisher, aim the nozzle and squeeze the handle. Then they got to do it themselves using the simulator.

“If you just watch people do it, it’s like being a passenger in a car, you never learn how to get anywhere,” Stewart said. “You’ve got to try it for yourself.”

One-by-one, staff members aim the fire extinguisher simulator at the virtual flames on the screen and squeeze the handle, triggering a loud whooshing noise.

“I’ve always seen fire extinguishers, but I’ve never used one,” said class participant Laura Craig, a Clinical Technician in the Duke University Hospital Phlebotomy Lab. “I feel confident with them now.”

From left to right, Kayin Fails, Dylan Johnson and Esther Steingold discuss the training exercise involving Wilson, the CPR mannequin. Photo by Travis Stanley.

Sharpening Life-Saving Skills

Kayin Fails, left, and Duke Rec Director of Recreation Facilities Dylan Johnson, right, look for a place to stash a CPR mannequin for a fellow staff member to find. Photo by Travis Stanley.

As Facility Monitors Kayin Fails and Esther Steingold circle Wilson Recreation Center on a recent busy Monday, they count of the number of people using elliptical machines or shooting hoops.

When they cast an eye toward a quiet corner of an upper floor, they spot Wilson, the guest they’ve been looking for.

“We found our dummy,” Fails said.

Wilson is the name of the CPR simulation mannequin that is periodically placed in parts of the center as a training exercise for Duke Recreation & Physical Education staff members. During exercises, any staff member who spots the mannequin – a pale flesh-colored head and torso wearing a Duke Rec shirt – must react as if it were a human.

“When they see the mannequin, they’re going to treat it like a person laying on the ground,” said Duke Rec Director of Recreation Facilities Dylan Johnson, who helps organize the exercise. “They’re going to assess the scene and check to see if the person is responsive.”

Of course, Wilson won’t be responsive, so staff members must simulate CPR by performing 30 chest compressions.

After performing CPR, Fails fills out a form on his iPad explaining where and when he found the mannequin. Then he picks Wilson up and looks for somewhere to stash him, so another colleague can take a turn.

All 140 staff members at Wilson and Brodie Recreation Centers – both students and non-students – are trained in CPR, basic first aid, and the use of Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs). That training proved vital last year when a physical therapist suffered a medical emergency at Wilson Recreation Center and survived thanks to the staff’s quick response.

Ready for the Real Thing

Laura Fick, back row, third from left, was among roughly 25 Duke caregivers who took part in an annual training exercise running a simulated emergency medical shelter in May 2024. A few months later, Fick and her colleagues teamed up again to help victims of Hurricane Helene. Photo courtesy of Laura Fick.
For three days, Duke caregivers helped turn a Boy Scouts campground near Carthage into a simulated emergency medical shelter to practice for real emergency scenarios, such as Hurricane Helene, which struck a few months later. Photo courtesy of Laura Fick.

For three weeks last September, around around 100 Duke medical providers – including physicians, physician assistants, nurses, pharmacists, paramedics, EMTs, case managers and physical therapists – operated a shelter in western North Carolina for medically vulnerable people displaced by Hurricane Helene.

As part of the State Medical Assistance Team, a statewide network of caregivers who assist during emergencies, Duke team members cared for hundreds of patients who, in many cases, had lost homes and were separated from loved ones.

“Helene was a different animal,” said Duke Assistant Healthcare Preparedness Coordinator Scott Horner. “It was something none of us had ever experienced.”

While Helene presented these Duke caregivers a challenge, it was one they’d prepared for.

Five months earlier, at an annual three-day training exercise, around 25 members of Duke’s emergency response team gained valuable experience operating a medical shelter for simulated patients.

At a Boy Scouts campground near Carthage, volunteers played patients displaced by a fictitious storm. Caregivers from 18 health care and emergency management organizations, including Duke, treated patients in the camp’s rustic buildings, facing simulated scenarios such as cardiac emergencies and strokes.

“It was incredibly successful in that it helped us recognize some issues that we needed to address,” said North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Health Care Preparedness Program Manager Kimberly Clement, an event organizer. “When Helene came around, we were able to know these things going in.”

For Duke Regional Hospital Clinical Nurse Laura Fick, the exercise allowed her to build a rapport with fellow members of Duke’s emergency response team. By the time they served together during Helene, they were bonded and ready for the challenges to come.

“What the exercise did for me, as far as giving me and opportunity to train with other people who were there with us during Helene, was invaluable,” Fick said.

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