Responders get active shooter training
Dr. Micha Campbell, left, assistant medical director of Pittsburgh SWAT, talks with first responders about triage for shooting victims at mass shooting incidents. Local emergency personnel including police and paramedics from departments around Washington County received training as first responders to mass shooting incidents at South Strabane Township fire hall on Oak Spring Road Thursday .
A team made up of police and paramedics move slowly through a staged area filled with smoke and the blaring sound of police responding to a shooting in search of the shooter and victims. At left, Dr. Micha Campbell, assistant medical director of Pittsburgh SWAT, talks with first responders about triage for shooting victims at mass shooting incidents at South Strabane Township fire hall on Oak Spring Road Thursday. Photos by Jim McNutt / Observer-Reporter
A paramedic pulls a shooting victim to safety as the rest of his search team moves slowly through a smoke-filled area with the police radio blaring transmissions as part of training Thursday. Local emerency personnel including police and paramedics from departments around Washington County received training as first responders to mass shooting incidents at South Strabane Township fire hall on Oak Spring Road Thursday .
The horror on the television screen has become all too familiar. People with gunshot wounds or other horrific injuries trapped inside a building with a crazed gunman and unable to get help.
More than 120 police officers, firefighters and emergency medical providers learned Thursday how to reach an injured person trapped in such a shooting during training sponsored by Washington County Emergency Management Agency and UPMC Pre-hospital Care. The training, Life Sustaining Interventions: Responding to the Active Shooter, was held at the South Strabane No. 2 fire hall.
Participants reviewed scene management and patient care concepts during an active shooter event. They also looked at lessons learned from mass shooting incidents and practiced delivering emergency care in such an environment.
Skills practiced included identifying priority patients, patient movement techniques to transfer victims to safe locations and other techniques to assess and treat bleeding and breathing problems.
“It is a shame we have to train for such situations, but it is the age we live in,” said Ron Sicchitano, deputy director of the county’s Department of Public Safety. “We want the first, everyday responders to be prepared. It is a lesson we learned from Columbine.”
Police were trained in how to treat victims and pass along information to medical personnel.
“We have to get away from the attitude that it can’t happen here,” Sicchitano added.
The afternoon session was geared more for police, while the evening session was for emergency medical personnel and firefighters. The instructors were Dr. Micha Campbell, an attending physician for UPMC’s emergency department and assistant medical director for Pittsburgh SWAT, and Dr. Marcus Hoffman, UPMC trauma surgeon.
Sicchitano said the training was well received by the participants. He said the county will continue to hold similar programs.