College of Medicine alumnus missing in Florida condo collapse

“Dr. Curry is one of two physician medical team managers who deploy with an 82-person task force. The two physicians and four paramedic medical specialists are responsible for the health and safety of the team, the dogs, and any ill or injured victims encountered. The team is self-sufficient, and member roles include structural engineers, logistics, planning and hazardous materials experts, in addition to search specialists and technical rescuers,” says Jason McMullan, MD, associate professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, who also is a member of OH-TF1.

Curry and McMullan are among six physicians in the state on the team.

Phil Sinewe, public information officer for OH-TF1, says “our goal as a team is to not be a burden on the incident. Our teams come fully self-sufficient for a minimum of 14 days. That’s the reason there’s a medical component. We want to be able to take care of our own people without taking any resources away from the incident.”

Sinewe added that medical care sometimes also is provided to the search dogs by the medical team. Should search dogs become injured, often by receiving cuts or injuries to their feet while working in building rubble, and if veterinarians are not immediately available, the medical staff jump in to treat the animals. Search dogs seldom wear foot protection while working as they need their feet to feel where they are walking, he explains.

OH-TF1 typically responds to three or four incidents a year, most often to help with the aftermath of hurricanes. During the last several years they have assisted with the response to hurricanes Laura in August 2020, Dorian in September 2019 , and Florence and Michael in September and October 2018. McMullan was deployed most recently during Hurricane Dorian and the Dayton tornados in May 2019. He and Mel Otten, MD, professor of emergency medicine, also responded to the Killen Generating Station collapse in Adams County, in December 2020 as part of the Hamilton County Urban Search and Rescue team.

McMullen, who has been with OH-TF1 since 2008, says that this is Curry’s first deployment since he began training with the task force about two years ago.

“When Dr. Curry texted me and let me know that he and the other incredibly brave members of OH-TF1 were being mobilized to help in Florida, I just thanked him for his selfless service and asked him to please be careful. That team, like so many of our first responders and specialized rescue personnel, are truly modern day heroes,” says Arthur Pancioli, MD, Richard C. Levy Professor and Chair, Department of Emergency Medicine. “The Greater Cincinnati community is fortunate to have many highly skilled and incredibly dedicated individuals who regularly take on personal risk in an effort to assist others. Drs. McMullan and Curry are clear examples of the kind of self-sacrificing people that we all should be thankful for every day.”

Currey also serves an assistant medical director for the City of Reading and Village of Evendale.

“I became an assistant medical director for a lot of different reasons and it was through that work that I realized this was really rewarding,” Curry said last year. “In the emergency department, I can touch the lives of 30 or 40 patients a day and over the course of a career that’s a lot of people, but it’s still a limited number. As a medical director, if I write an EMS protocol, or change the way all my paramedics practice in a certain way, that can help thousands of lives a year.”

Sinewe noted that the Cincinnati community benefits from Curry’s and McMullan’s participation in OHTH1 because they receive specialized training that they may not normally get and are able to bring that back to UC.

“Supporting one of these teams is a big deal, a big commitment and it says a lot about any organization that allows its employees to participate because it’s a burden when someone like an ER doc is activated and someone has to cover for them. That’s a big commitment for UC to step up and say ‘we will support his participation in the organization,’” he says.

Everyone who is a part of the OHTH1 team volunteer their time to train and to be ready for deployment by FEMA. When deployed to an incident, they become sworn employees of FEMA during their deployment and FEMA reimburses their wages to their employers so there is no financial burden.

“It’s a very, very talented group of people,” Sinewe says of the task force members. “They really are the tops in their field. They’re a team ready to do whatever is needed to be done.”