TORONTO—The warning signalling a mass casualty situation blares out from the overhead speakers in the emergency department at St. Michael’s Hospital minutes before the first patient shuffles in with painted-on scrapes and bruises talking about an explosion.
Staff at the downtown Toronto facility hear the declaration of a “code orange” and whir into action—they know it’s a simulation designed to test the hospital’s response to catastrophe but their reaction to the situation is real.
