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MA medical team provides aid to Iran earthquake victims

Emergency Management Alert, December 6, 2003

Within eight hours of receiving the call, a Boston medical emergency response team on December 27 left for Iran to help the thousands of victims of a devastating earthquake, the Associated Press reports.

The team of 60 Boston-area physicians and other medical experts, known as the International Medical Surgical Response Team (IMSURT), loaded tons of equipment onto an Air Force cargo plane and left Westover Air Force Base in Chicopee, MA, at about 5 p.m. on December 27. They were scheduled to arrive in Iran on December 28.

The team is one of four such units in the United States, but the only currently active one. The group was already on high alert after the U.S. terror alert level was raised on December 21, but it didn't expect to be sent to Iran.

The Boston team plans to set up and operate an entirely self-sufficient field hospital in or near the city of Bam for the next three weeks. Bam was leveled by a 6.3 magnitude earthquake early on December 26. As of December 29, workers had already recovered 25,000 bodies and believe the death toll could approach 40,000, with 10,000 believed wounded.

The IMSURT team includes surgeons, nurses, paramedics, EMTs, pharmacists, respiratory technicians, anesthesiologists, and its own security personnel. The group, along with an elite search and rescue team from Virginia, was sent by the Bush administration after a request from the Iranian government.

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