Page 4, Fire News, June/July 2022
FireNews.com
From the Editor’s Desk Dennis Whittam, Editor
Are You Ready for Something That Can’t Happen? An AS/MCI (active shooter/mass casualty incident) drill was held at Greenport (NY) High School on June 4, 2022. The drill had been scheduled months prior, but somewhat eerily took place 11 days after the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting in which 19 elementary school students and two teachers were slaughtered. The proximity to that latest AS/MCI is what has prompted this editorial. The drill involved the Southold Police, Suffolk Police, North Fork fire departments and EMS services from Jamesport to Orient, and even several South Fork departments, along with moulaged teenage actors to play victims. By all reports the exercise was a success. But what makes a successful AS/MCI drill? According to FEMA’s 2013 white paper, Fire/Emergency Medical Services Department Operational Considerations and Guide for Active Shooter and Mass Casualty Incidents, there are several things that responding agencies need to incorporate into a specific SOP for such an event. Why formalize reacting to an AS/MCI if your department already has an MCI plan in place? Because the “AS” part of the exercise makes it, nearly, an entirely different animal. Some particular areas of focus, become apparent with little thought and are proved out — or have problems made obvious — by an AS/MCI
drill. Some key facets are communication between the parties, including ensuring all parties are not only able to communicate with each other, but use the same terminologies when doing so. This is unlikely to be a problem between FDs and EMS, but it may become a problem when communicating with law enforcement (LE) who, in most instances, will be first on the scene. Other areas of concern will become apparent in frequent drills involving all the aforementioned agencies, as well as local hospitals and trauma units. There needs to be a single Incident Command Post for fire, EMS and LE. The goal of any and all SOPs is to plan, prepare and respond in a manner that will save the maximum number of lives possible. Although in their careers most first responders have encountered some horrific scenarios, the results of a mass shooting of unarmed people — seemingly more often than not children with obviously terminal wounds — will undoubtedly be something first responders will never forget. Many of the first responders will be long-term casualties of this ongoing slaughter, even if they never spilled a drop of their own blood. As psychology researcher Deborah C. Beidel, Ph.D. of the University of Central Florida, who has studied the impact these slaughters have on first
responders, put it, “There are just some events that are so horrific that no human being should be able to just process that and put it away.” Add after-action reports and treatments to the long list of things an AS/MCI SOP demands. A last note … “It’ll never happen here” too often becomes, “Oh my God, how did this happen?” Be prepared for the thing that’ll never happen. And the only way to do so is to train for it. - Gary P. Joyce Managing Editor Gary P. Joyce is filling in for Editor Dennis Whittam this month. Joyce is a decorated three-tour Viet Nam combat veteran.
