Photo By James Brabenec | A Reynolds Army Community Hospital triage officer and a first responder from the...... read more read more
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By Cindy McIntyre
FORT SILL, Okla. (Aug. 12, 2016) -- The handheld radio crackled, "Respond to Freedom Elementary, 5720 Geronimo Road for an active shooter." If the next three words hadn't been "exercise, exercise, exercise," anyone who heard the dispatcher's call might have had a moment of heart-stopping dread and panic.
In reality it was a well-planned test of the capabilities of Fort Sill emergency personnel and its Lawton partners in the event of an active shooter in the school. Set to begin at 10 a.m., the exercise involved around 20 controllers and 75 actors as well as most of Fort Sill's emergency services personnel.
The scenario was this: an active shooter gained entrance into Freedom Elementary School and "started shooting people who happened to be in wrong place at wrong time," said Jim Carney, the exercise's planner and lead controller. School personnel would have called 911 and the dispatcher would have sent out the alert heard on the radio.
Within minutes the first sirens were heard, and Fort Sill's police drove their cars to the front entrance, and got out with weapons drawn. The cops only knew it was an exercise; they did not know the details of what was going down inside.
Before the police entered the school, the controllers removed their ammunition magazines and attached a zip tie to prevent the Beretta 9mm handguns from firing. When five of them were on scene, they cautiously approached the entrance, weapons aimed at the door as they glanced around. The sixth was setting up the Incident Command Post.
Other first responders set up a perimeter about 100 yards away to keep the public away from the scene. "Parents" gathered, demanding to know what was happening and if their children were safe.
A military policeman tried to calm them down and told them they needed to go to Snow Hall where they would be kept informed and reunited with their children. After a few minutes of protest, they dispersed. In the meantime roadblocks had been set up around the school, and Soldiers in combat uniforms wielding M16s aided the police in keeping the area secure.
One of the parent actors, Drill Sgt. (Staff Sgt.) Michelle Haskins, E Battery, 1st Battalion, 40th Field Artillery, said her husband's children had been in a real active shooter situation in March 2001, at Santana High School in San Diego. When the news outlets broadcast the situation, she said "literally a thousand parents" showed up in full panic mode.
"I appreciate the training, I think it's a wonderful thing, but to get the reality there needs to be complete and utter pandemonium," she said. Parents at that school were "climbing fences, parking erratically in the street, cutting locks to get to their kids." She said her husband "literally climbed fences to get to these kids." Two people were killed, and 13 injured by the shooter, a 15-year-old boy who is now in prison.
Inside Freedom Elementary, four "bodies" were just outside the office in the hallway. The blood looked real, but the bodies were mannequins with a card labeled "dead" on them. The "wounded" children and teachers were secured in the Music Room, many of them lying on the floor with various fake injuries, some graphically severe. Cops with guns drawn guarded the hallway and the room.
In the green gym, the mannequin "shooter" had killed himself. He was found and handcuffed. Sgt. Stacey Cornelious, a traffic accident investigator, stood over him with gun drawn. Sgt. Sean Carter, a conservation law officer (game warden) and Officer Jesse Alverson, a Fort Sill Police Department patrol rookie, were with him when the shooter was found.
The "injured" children were played by youngsters ages 8 to 10, most of them students at Freedom Elementary. Some of the adults were school teachers and administrators, including Lana Welch, an assistant principal at Freedom Elementary.
"I think it's important that we know what to do and that we know we are protected," said Welch, who played one of the wounded. "It would be very hard for me not to try to help my staff members and children that go to school here if I'm injured, of if we're told to run and hide, to hear these people asking for help and not being able to get to them."
Sadie Hollebeke, a third grader at Pioneer Park Elementary, came with her grandmother Cheryl Scammahorn, former principal at Sheridan Road Elementary, now principal at Carriage Hills Elementary. Sadie said her role was to yell for help and lay on the floor. She said of the role-playing, "I learned how to be safe."
Fire Department personnel from Fort Sill and Lawton brought their trucks to the entrance and a triage area was set up. The injured were brought out of the school on stretchers and on flexible litters, and placed on tarps next to the fire engines.
There wasn't enough shade so those laying in the 96-degree sun were soon protected with a red tarp held aloft by fire personnel until a fold-up tent was erected. Each of the role players had an ankle tag that told of their initial injuries, and a more detailed description of vital signs that would dictate how they would be triaged and treated.
Soldiers from Reynolds Army Community Hospital began treatment, and though the scene looked like controlled chaos, it was managed by several triage officials who wore bright yellow vests. Ambulances were not used for the exercise, but in a real incident the injured would have been transported to local hospitals.
Away from the school, an Incident Command Post was set up to manage the response, and the Emergency Operations Center in the basement of McNair Hall expanded from the usual four or five people to around 30, with the garrison commander and directorate heads present. After the commanding general was briefed, a press conference was held at the Fort Sill Conference Center to brief "representatives" of national media.
Although in a real incident the gates would be locked, for the exercise stricter security measures were implemented, meaning long lines for people coming on post. Following protocol, all buildings would have instituted lockdown procedures as well.
"An active shooter is something we need to know how to handle," said Carney. "It's not just the police showing up at the school. It encompasses the entire installation." He said the exercise took a year to plan. "If there's something that pops up that we didn't plan for or execute properly we collect our shortfalls and work on those to fix that."
| Date Taken: | 08.12.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 01.23.2017 12:14 |
| Story ID: | 220997 |
| Location: | FORT SILL, OKLAHOMA, US |
| Web Views: | 245 |
| Downloads: | 4 |
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