Paris First Responders took part in an “active shooter” training drill Monday morning on Oct. 14,-an extension from their A.L.E.R.T. training they took part in earlier this year.
Personnel from Paris Police Department, E.M.S., and Fire Department were there alongside Texas DPS, Lamar County Sheriff’s Office, Reno Police Department, and Lamar County Emergency Management.
“This training is fairly critical,” said Captain Chad Graves with Paris Fire Department.
Graves, who organized the drill, continued to say that although all departments respond and work together well, it is always imperative as emergency responders to continue to improve. And improve to become self-sufficient in the case a real-life incident was to occur as “back up” from other bigger cities would not likely happen in the time that would be optimal.
The scene was set at the College Church of Christ located on the corner of 24th S.E. St and Polk St. Actors were staged inside the church, each with a specific character and injuries that accompanied them.
Incident command was set at the bottom of the car park located next to Clarksville St., where officers and emergency personnel were staged.
This particular training was being run as a simulation to mirror what emergency personnel would confront in a real-life situation.
Radio channels were set for those that took part in the scenario, and from the first dispatch call, it only took a short time before the first police unit showed up on the scene. From there, units from Paris PD and Lamar County Sheriff’s Office rolled up, and officers were then in full training mode as they set each other in groups and also began to create an incident command center.
Though the details of what went down inside the church were not available due to training regulations, it was just as if the scenario was being played out in real life to reporters on the scene being relayed information to put out to the public.
“All we know at this stage is that there is an active shooter inside the church-there are wounded casualties confirmed,” said Paris Police Information Officer (P.I.O.) Curtis Garrett, “this is all we know right now.”
Garrett, along with Lt. Doug Thompson, took the roles of the P.I.O. and relayed information to reporters as they would in a real-life situation.
From there on, actors portraying victims were seen running from the church towards emergency personnel. Paris E.M.S. was seen as being on stand-by in a ‘safe zone’ until such time they could either render first aid or be given the clear to drive ambulances up to the building.
“The shooter has been neutralized,” said Garrett, “we do not know any more information right now.”
As the scenario continued to play out, the incident command area continued to work across all departments as they were seen to instruct how to render aid to those actors playing the victims.
“I can now confirm that so far there are nine wounded, of those nine four, are critical and have been transported to the hospital,” Garrett said.
At this point, the scenario, though still active, was winding down.It was crucial to understand how emergency personnel work alongside each other in these possible high stress, high risk, volatile situations.
“In a real-life situation, we would have a larger area blocked off. If you are not a responder, you would be set back in a safe zone,” Thompson explained.
Both Thompson and Garrett also went further to say that ensuring the correct information was relayed to the public, it is crucial to stay connected to your local news source.
“In instances such as these, we do need the media to help us get the correct information out,” said Garrett.
“It is important that they help us relay to family members that may have someone in the situation of where to go and what to do,” Thompson further added.
In such cases of a real-life situation, members of the public are encouraged to stay away from the area, and in such a case as they may have a loved one in the outcome, they should first contact the hospital to see if said person was admitted.
“We did a lot of things well,” said Graves, “we transported 20 people to the hospital in a total time of 30-mins. This time of transfer is good, but hopefully, we can improve on that with future trainings.”
The overall feel from first responders once the drill was over with, is that it was a success. Like most training, when you aren’t faced with the real-life scenario of the drills, there will always be room for improvement and introducing better protocols.
Officials at the training acknowledged the importance of the training and how continuing the specialized trainings across all departments is vital in continuing to keep the community safe.
“Although we did really good overall, the aim of this type of training is to be able to identify our weaknesses to correct them. We need to identify what works well and what needs improvement. Finding solutions to problems, whether they be more training, funding, or policy changes, is what we are looking for,” Graves explained.
He hopes that going forward, local emergency responders will be able to continue training more than just the annual mass casualty training that happened on Monday morning.
“We have seen a lot of great outcomes from this drill, and should an incident occur here in Paris or Lamar County, we are confident that our teams can neutralize a situation quickly and effectively,” Graves added.
VIDEO: Tony Corso Images
PHOTO: Erin Jusseaume (myparistexas.com and Tony Corso
