Preparing for the worst

BY GINNY RAUE
WEST MILFORD — It was a scene you hope and pray will never come to pass – a shooting incident in a West Milford Township school. One moment youngsters are having fun in the high school gym, the next moment there are more than 30 gunshot victims with varying degrees of injuries lying on the floor. The shooter lies dead in a blocked off corner of the caféteria. It wasn’t real, but it was a bone-chilling sight.

They were just kids, enjoying life, when violence turned the day into a mass casualty nightmare that emergency personnel must prepare for.

It was for this reason that the active shooter drill was jointly held on Nov. 2, by the West Milford First Aid Squad (WMFAS) and the Upper Greenwood Lake Volunteer Ambulance Corps (UGVAC). Its purpose is to allow the emergency workers the opportunity to test their readiness and divulge the need for any further training.

School violence has a history
The first recorded school shooting occurred in 1764 in Pennsylvania, when four gun-toting men entered a schoolhouse and killed the schoolmaster and 10 children.

The Columbine High School shooting in Colorado in 1999, a massacre that left 12 dead and 21 injured, was rivaled in tragedy by the 2012 Sandy Hook School shooting in Connecticut, when 20 children and six adults were killed.

According to WMFAS president, Ken Cuneo, the Columbine shootings changed the tactics somewhat of emergency response to mass casualty incidents. Prior to Columbine, police officers would go to a scene then wait for a SWAT team, losing precious time. Now, he said, the first police officers on the scene attempt to apprehend or take down the culprit(s), significantly decreasing the number of casualties by shortening the time span between the first report and medical help safely reaching the victims. In our town

The active shooting drill was held under the direction of Dolores Serpe, the WMFAS training lieutenant. It was three months in the planning and to her careful observation, the exercise went extremely well.

Some residents may have noticed the emergency vehicles on the roads that Sunday morning. They ran without lights or sirens but seeing so many vehicles may have raised concern in those who missed the signs indicating a drill was in progress.

Because this was a drill, it was permissible for the media to be up close as the scene unfolded. If this had been a true incident the press and concerned bystanders would have been kept at bay and roads would have been closed.

According to Serpe, because this is not the type of scene they normally respond to, it’s critical for the EMTs to learn to work in a “different gear,” to follow the chain of command as it evolves. To that end, there is a plan, an ever-widening circle of controlled direction: the Incident Command System (ICS).

Order among chaos saves lives
The ICS was developed when it was determined that more losses were caused by inadequate management than by a lack of resources, improper tactics or any other reason.

ICS “is a systematic tool used for the command, control and coordination of emergency response.” ICS is employed by government and non-government entities nation-wide for a broad spectrum of emergencies, both natural and man-made.

In the West Milford drill, the police arrived first, dispatched the shooter and summoned the first aid squads. Once the initial medical assessments were made, the calls went out for additional support.

The circle widens
Within a short period of time, the parking lot was filling up with emergency vehicles; West Milford ambulance squads, police, fire companies, Search and Rescue and the Office of Emergency Management trailer used as a command center, St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center Mass Care Response Unit and Mobile Intensive Care Unit and their EMS physician, Atlantic Ambulance Paramedics, Wayne First Aid Squad, Milton First Aid Squad, Ringwood First Aid Squad, Passaic County Sheriff Search and Rescue, County of Passaic EMS Task Force, and Hackensack University Medical Center Mobile Intensive Care Unit, helicopter and flight medics.

The victims
While the additional responders were racing to West Milford, the victims were being triaged and treated. The walking-wounded were escorted to the caféteria, others came in on stretchers and several victims lay mortally wounded on the gym floor. Once in the caféteria, the injured were re-assessed and the EMTs tended first to those most in need.

Without the help of the volunteer victims from the West Milford Players, high school theater group and Girl Scouts, this would have been a victimless crime scene.

They played their parts well, moaning and screaming for help, their bloody make up and twisted and pained positions on the floor lent an air of reality to this grim scene.

One actor, an unexpected “plant” in the scenario, tried to gain access to the gym and was promptly noticed and secured.

Hannah Beekman, a 13-year-old Girl Scout from Troop #70639, volunteered to be a victim. As it turned out, she played one of the deceased.

“They marked me as dead, and that was that,” she said, calmly.

Beekman has played a drill victim before so this was not new to her, but the screaming made her a little nervous and being part of the drill has her considering her safety.

“It could happen anytime,” she said but added she would now be more alert and willing to speak up if she noticed something out of the ordinary.

“I’ll think about it once in a while but I plan on doing this every year. I’m glad I can help people practice.”

Both Serpe and Cuneo applauded the volunteer victims.

“They were phenomenal,” Serpe said and mentioned that a few days later at Career Day at school, several of the kids who played victims signed up to take EMT classes.

Cuneo noticed that none of the kids touched their cell phones throughout the entire drill. Obviously, they took it seriously.

And so did the emergency responders, people who routinely devote themselves to the safety and welfare of others.

“How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!” Maya Angelou

Sources: http://training.fema.gov; http://en.wikepedia.org; http://www.quotegarden.com;