{"id":13196,"date":"2019-04-25T17:47:38","date_gmt":"2019-04-25T23:47:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=13196"},"modified":"2019-04-25T17:47:38","modified_gmt":"2019-04-25T23:47:38","slug":"emergency-disaster-drill-simulates-active-shooter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2019\/04\/25\/emergency-disaster-drill-simulates-active-shooter\/","title":{"rendered":"Emergency disaster drill simulates active shooter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Department of Public Safety held an emergency disaster drill on campus on April 24 with campus and community officials and first responders to simulate an active shooter situation.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s drill involved a few new aspects, including a campus-wide lockdown, according to Craig Russell, director of Public Safety.<\/p>\n

Russell said Public Safety received feedback that some students received an email but not a phone call or text message warning of the lockdown drill, and the following day, he contacted Information Technology Services to ask for help to solve the problem.<\/p>\n

Kevin Davis, assistant director of Public Safety, typically does a comprehensive review of the emergency management plan every summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as specific protocols … everything that we\u2019ve got in place worked, and that\u2019s one of the reasons why we conduct the drill \u2014 just to make sure we don\u2019t need to make any tweaks,\u201d Davis said.\u201cIt all worked as it was supposed to,so that\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around 200 people get involved in a drill like this, including people both inside and outside of Harding, according to Russell. The Searcy police department, fire department, hospital and emergency medical services participate in the annual drill. More recently, a Life Flight helicopter has been added to the rotation. Inside of Harding, Public Safety, Information Technology Services, Physical Resources, University Communications and Marketing, the Office of Human Resources and the Business Office engage in the simulation. Some participants in the College of Allied Health played roles as victims and responders.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an exercise where those that would really respond in an emergency on and off campus get involved, but we also use\u00a0it as an academic exercise,\u201d Russell said.<\/p>\n

Nursing, athletic training, pharmacy, physician assistant\u00a0and professional counseling majors are the health programs involved with the disaster drill, according to Karen Kelley, assistant professor of nursing.<\/p>\n

Kelley is a member of the Harding Emergency Management Committee, and she coordinates the academic departments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to have to work together in the event of an actual disaster, and so it\u2019s important to practice that together and learn,\u201d Kelley said.<\/p>\n

The drill took place in the Ezell Building, and the Life Flight helicopter landed on the lawn in front of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Music and Communication. The triage station unfolded on the lawn in front of the Ezell Building in the form of four colored tarps manned by medical professionals.<\/p>\n

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Senior nursing major Ashley Collins played the role of a victim with a gunshot wound, and she said she started out in the Ezell Building, and the police escorted she and other victims out of the building to the triage area.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey did the gunshots and everything inside,\u201dCollins said. \u201cI knew it wasn\u2019t real, but it was kind of scary just to be in there and hear all the screaming.\u201d<\/p>\n

She started out on the yellow tarp, and then her simulated condition grew more severe, so she moved to the red tarp. Collins said the simulated victims were given slips of paper with their vital signs and how they would change over the course of the simulation.<\/p>\n

Senior nursing major Tori Hurt played the role of a nurse to help with the simulated triaging and assessed the patients as they left the scene. Hurt worked on the red tarp, which was the designated area for emergency care and severely wounded patients who needed transported to the hospital as soon as possible.The black tarp meant deceased patients,the green tarp meant walking wounded and the yellow tarp meant injuries that could wait before going to the hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great experience and helps us as a Harding community,\u201d Hurt said. \u201cWe haven\u2019t had this scenario before, and so that way, we can better prepare for that in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are two phases to the drill, according to Jana Rucker, vice president of university communication and enrollment. The first phase continues as long as there is an active threat, and once the area is secure, phase two begins.<\/p>\n

In a situation like this, she said her job is to prepare official statements on behalf of the university, and during phase one, she would assimilate information, communicate through social media and keep the website updated. In phase two, she would make official statements and hold press conferences.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time we\u2019ve done anything of this scale,\u201d Rucker said. \u201cUnfortunately, it\u2019s relevant. … We all want to feel that we\u2019re prepared.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harding held the first emergency disaster drill in spring 2002 and continued every year since. According to Rucker, other organizations and universities send representatives to Harding to observe and learn from the drill.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe prepare for the worst and pray for the best,\u201d Rucker said. \u201cWe hope we never have to do it, but there\u2019s also some comfort in saying, \u2018I know what I would do.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Department of Public Safety held an emergency disaster drill on campus on April 24 with campus and community officials and first responders to simulate an active shooter situation. This…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15045,"featured_media":13197,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15045"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13198,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13196\/revisions\/13198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}