COLLINSVILLE — In recent years, school shootings have become a sad part of life in America.
Local police and fire departments are doing their part to be ready to react to such events as quickly and efficiently as possible.
On Thursday, the Collinsville Fire and Police Departments hosted an active shooter training session at Summit Elementary School in Collinsville. The Southwestern Illinois Law Enforcement Commission (SILEC) provided the training for the session, which also included members of the Glen Carbon Fire Department.
Thursday’s training was the second of two sessions in Collinsville, with an identical session being held a week earlier.
“This is part of our continued effort to make sure that our police and firefighters are equipped to deal with shooter-type situations,” Collinsville Chief of Police Steven Evans said.
“We have evolved through time with the tragic and unfortunate events in our world over the last 20 or 30 years and the lessons we’ve learned from them.”
The training started at 8 a.m. with a power point presentation put on by SILEC training staff to educate participants on active shooter data/outcomes.
From 10 a.m. to noon, participants divided up into groups and rotated through several skill stations, such as wound care, triage, identifying savable patients and quick carry/rescue.
In the afternoon session from 12:30 p.m. to 4 p.m., participants practiced a variety of real-life scenarios throughout the building designed to reinforce the necessity of locating and neutralizing the threat immediately. The training also incorporated the Rescue Task Force concept designed to get emergency medical services to victims quickly.
Evans noted that the tactics used to by police to react to active shooter situations have changed over the years, based on lessons learned from previous school shootings.
“The major thing that has changed that results in this specific type of training is that we learned that we had to get to the shooter and neutralize them as quickly as possible,” Evans said. “What we didn’t do was to help the fire department and EMS to also get in as quickly as possible.
“This training is called Rescue Task Force and one of the goals is to train to not only neutralize the shooter, but also to help EMS safely get to victims and treat them as soon as possible.”
Thursday’s training session included 45 to 50 police and fire personnel, with a similar number attending the previous session.
“The purpose for that is to give every one of them this type of training,” Evans said. “We recognize the importance of not just doing the training but making sure that parents (of students) know that we will be prepared for any kind of unfortunate event.”
While the police were working through a variety of active shooter scenarios with the SILEC trainers, the session was equally valuable for members of the Collinsville Fire Department.
“Active shooters are unfortunately the new normal, but we have two equally important components in dealing with that,” Collinsville Deputy Fire Chief Larry Conley said.
“For the police, their primary job is to neutralize the shooter, and after that, the work begins of saving lives. We’re working together with the police to get to the victims as soon as possible.”
As it has with the police, the strategies for EMS personnel to react to school shootings have changed over the years, based on real-life events.
“The old thinking was that the police get in and do their work to neutralize the shooter and then we come in and do our part with treatment and triage,” Conley said. “However, with this type of training, we’re able to go into a warm zone close to the active shooter and the police who are ready to neutralize him. We’re able to put hands onto victims as quickly as possible, rather than waiting for the police to come out.”
Conley added that training sessions such as the one on Thursday increase the readiness of first responders to deal with an actual school shooting situation.
“When something like this happens, you don’t want to try to figure it out as it’s happening. It’s best to practice it now and get an idea of what to expect,” Conley said.
“When it happens, unfortunately, it’s going to be chaotic, and it may deviate from some of the stuff that we’re practicing. Still, having a methodology is a whole lot better than not knowing what to do or having a bunch of people bumping heads on what the priorities are.”
Lt. Jason Reaka was one of three members of the Glen Carbon Fire Department to participate in Thursday’s training. Three other members of the department attended the previous session.
“It’s all about preparedness. No one ever wants this to happen, but if it does, we want to be ready,” Reaka said. “We’re taking a more active role and trying to get into (the shooting zone) earlier with the help of the police officers. We want to be able to start treating the victims earlier.”
Like Conley, Reaka noted the importance of training for real-life scenarios involving an active shooter in a school.
“Practice makes perfect, and we just need to keep with the latest training strategies,” Reaka said. “We work together quite a bit, and we have a mutual aid system set up and the more we can train together, the better we are.”
Having their own child involved in an active shooter scenario at their school may be unthinkable for most parents, but Conley wants the community to know that first responders are prepared for any situation.
“You want to feel safe with your child going to school and you don’t want anything like this to happen,” Conley said. “But if it does happen, then you want to have confidence that agencies are trained, capable and able to solve the problem while saving as many lives as possible.”
Conley also saluted Collinsville’s public safety personnel for their dedication.
“A lot of our EMS and police take vacations around this time of year and a lot of them didn’t take vacation this week so they could be part of this,” Conley said. “We’re taking it very seriously and we’re praying that something like this never happens, but if it does, we’re ready to engage and save lives.”