Being ready in the first 15 minutes during an active threat incident is critical.
At the request of GCC and several school districts in Genesee County, Genesee County Emergency Management Services and first responders practiced their integrated response to several different scenarios that could possibly unfold at places like colleges, schools, and public spaces.
Process and communication are key when involving many agencies throughout the area and beyond according to Tim Yaeger, Genesee County Emergency Management Services Coordinator.
The exercise today concentrated on the pre–Emergency Response Team time period of an active threat incident.
Video clip from today’s training
“It’s that first 15 minutes, so it’s a different element that were making sure that we are prepared for,” says Yaeger.
Yaeger says there will be more training planned in the near future, as only a fraction of first responders were on scene today. It will become a yearly exercise in the future as there is always a turnover of first responders and it’s important for all to remain proficient, especially with active threat incidents occurring all over the country and world on a daily basis.
“What I don’t want to see is be in a position that we have an event, and then we critique ourselves and we say next time, this is our next time, we don’t want to have a next time, we have to be prepared, we have to be able to respond and not have to critique ourselves to the point that next time we’ll do better, and that’s why we train so we’re ready to go.”
This is the first time NCBRT (National Center for Biomedical Research and Training), based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana has worked with Genesee County.
NCBRT is a Department of Homeland Security training partner that provides training to emergency responders throughout the United States and its territories under Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security National Training Program.
The goal of the training is to learn the skill set of integration, working together and communication while quickly moving victims out of the situation and to a hospital setting. Today, trainees went through three different scenarios without knowing what any of them were beforehand. First one was an active shooter situation, second situation was an officer down, the third incident involves adding social media to the problem.
“We want to make sure they are focused on what they’re doing, and they have a clear picture what they need to do as soon as they get in here and they’re effective and efficient in getting everyone out of here,” says Don Birou, Lead Instructor with NCBRT.
“Our goal is to set up a program or course that delivers a best practice that’s current and relative. Our goal in all our courses is integration of all the responders and trying to make sure all the responders are on the same page doing the same thing at the same time. A lot of times they just haven’t done that in the past, they are used to mass casualty, but they’re not used to this, so we try and get them on board and practice to see how this works.”
LSU is part of the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium group for Homeland Security that provides programs to first responders, NCBRT-Academy of Counter Terrorism Education, is one of six organizations in the group. NCBRT helps with training around the world.
“We deliver programs based on current events, past events, after action reports in incidents that have occurred and try to get first responders up to wherever level they wish to be. Our goal is integration, can you integrate, communicate and effectively accomplish to save lives.”
