THE tragic M5 crash sparked the biggest ever emergency at Taunton’s Musgrove Park Hospital.

Nic Moneiro, A&E senior nurse manager, said: “Our major incident plan was put into operation, additional staff from all specialities were called into A&E, and the clinical space was made to safely receive patients.

“I arrived 30 minutes later – there was an air of calm in the department, and only a few patients had arrived.

“We had additional A&E and clinical staff from across the hospital. We allocated a dedicated team of nurses and doctors to each patient, and a senior doctor made sure the sickest patients went to a CT scan or operating theatre first.

“We had excellent communication from the ambulance and police services to ensure we knew when patients were coming.

“We’re used to caring for severely injured patients and, clinically, we’re experienced with dealing with everything we needed to.

“However, the numbers and severity of patients arriving so closely together was on a scale we hadn’t experienced before.

“We relied on our professional training and experience and couldn’t let ourselves get emotionally overwhelmed.

“We have a fantastic team within Musgrove, so A&E patients can be well supported – matrons who set up a relatives’ area, and the communications team set up a press room, allowing us to do our job properly.

“I was impressed with the practical support I got once I took handover from the nurse in charge.

“Afterwards, an in-house debrief looked at our major incident plan, how we did and anything we could do better, and also ensured we could support each other after such a big accident.

“We felt confident we were able to care for everyone safely, and give them the best possible care, and we showed we can cope with another emergency should we ever need to.

“This was a terrible event, but we’re relieved things weren’t worse and we feel deeply for the patients we looked after.”