EMS, Police Team Up Against Active Shooter

By Tim Nelson

(07/26/07 — RALEIGH) - Training for the worst case scenario and hoping to be ready should a Columbine or a Virginia Tech type massacre ever happen in Raleigh has become a top priority for law enforcement and EMS workers.

Daniels Middle School was turned into a mock tragedy on Thursday. Law enforcement and Wake County EMS teamed up hoping they’ll never have to use the training they’ve received - but ready if that becomes necessary.

“Train as you work and work as you train,” is how EMS worker Skip Kirkwood approaches his job in the event of a worst case scenario.

The made-up tragedy is at Daniels Middle School is one that has happened. EMS worker Steve Gardner says, “As much as we can in training trying to simulate a Columbine/Virginia Tech type of scenario.”

It’s a situation where there is somebody in the building with a gun firing shots when police, EMS and fire officials arrive at the scene.

The goal is to neutralize the shooter and get any victims help a SAP. “The victims lying, who have been shot in a situation, they don’t have time for everyone to get here and secure and remove every risk from the scene,” Wake EMS worker Jeffrey Hammerstein explained to Eyewitness News.

With guns drawn, police form a diamond around two paramedics. Gardner says “They’re being escorted just in case there are bad guys that haven’t been found yet.”

The police will go hallway-to-hallway, classroom-to-classroom, looking for the wounded. The victims are 160 mannequins.

The strategy is simply to apply lessons learned from past tragedies like Columbine. “In those days, the first police officers on the scene did what they were trained to do. They were trained to surround the school, keep the shooter in. Unfortunately, that’s what the shooter wanted,” Gardner said.

With this training, law enforcement goes in earlier and EMS workers go in and well, and by training together they all hope to save lives.