Acadian Ambulance personnel part of emergency response effort in plant explosion

A massive fireball erupted into the sky Thursday and within minutes, the men and women of Acadian Ambulance were among the hundreds of emergency response personnel called into action.

Justin Cox was Acadian's incident commander on site at the triage center, in charge of 20 ambulances that quickly moved workers to area hospitals and used 4 Airmed helicopters to get the more critical patients to the medical care they needed.

"To see the interaction between Ascension Parish and Iberville Parish was amazing and certainly with all fire services, Baton Rouge EMS, ourselves and other fire departments - so it's amazing to see how people can come together when they needed to," said Cox.

Governor Bobby Jindal also lauded the massive team effort and explained while the investigation into the cause of the blast continues, recovery was the priority.

"All these first responders, fire crews did a great job of working together from the early hours until now and the work continues and I want to thank them for their brave effort," said Jindal.

Effort that Cox says was challenged by the raw emotion at every turn.

"I could still see people that was running around and then you had buses coming on scene and bringing patients from plant to where we were at the people coming off crying there it was terrible," added Cox.

Copyright 2013 WAFB. All rights reserved.