The Emergency Preparedness and Response section of the North Dakota Department of Health is deploying two Emergency Management Assistance Compact medical response teams to Raleigh, North Carolina this week.
Section Chief Tim Wiedrich says the teams are made of 28 registered nurses, paramedics and EMTs. He says they will assist the hurricane-impacted region in medical shelters currently housing vulnerable populations.
"The types of work the North Dakota medical crew will be doing is supporting shelters, and they'll be paying special attention to people that have medical needs in those shelters. So it could be anything like needing assistance taking medications, having certain signs and symptoms that need to be assessed and receive some level of treatment. So those are the types of activities that will be done. Obviously in these shelters there can be unanticipated events, cardiac arrest or those types of situations, where we could provide a response to as well."
The teams will leave for North Carolina today. Wiedrich says they are well-equipped for this response, as they helped with hurricane response last year as well.