ST. LUCIE COUNTY — A pair of health-care workers from St. Lucie County will be in Washington for the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama to provide MASH-like medical assistance to those overcome by the event or as immediate responders if something major occurs.

Clint Sperber, Region 5 public health preparedness coordinator, and David Crowe, regional emergency response advisor, are part of the Orlando-based Florida-6 Disaster Medical Assistance Team that will be in the District of Columbia at the request of the Capitol Physician’s Office and the D.C. Department of Health.

“We’re going to be helping anything that potentially could happen,” said Sperber, who handles the team’s administrative details.

The team is part of the National Disaster Medical System, which is a federally coordinated system augmenting the nation’s medical response capability.

The unit, described by Sperber as being modeled after the military Mobile Army Surgical Hospital popularized in the movie and TV show “M*A*S*H*,” is under the direction of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and is comprised of volunteers. The team will receive its formal instructions for the District on Monday.

By Jim Turner, TCPalm.com

Tags: inauguration, Obama

This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 12:22 pm and is filed under Community events, St. Lucie County. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.