North Adams First-Responders Stage Active Shooter Drill at Sullivan
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The closed Sullivan School on Friday morning hosted an emergency drill that brought more than 130 people together.
Kemp Avenue was closed to through traffic between Lake and Rich streets for several hours as first-responders deal with a simulated mass casualty incident on the elementary school campus.
"We brought together numerous agencies throughout Bekshire County, primarily police, fire and EMS from North Adams, and conducted an active shooter drill," said Amalio Jusino, assistant chief of the North Adams Ambulance Service and coordinator of the drill. "The real focus is integrating fire and EMS with law enforcement for effective critical life-saving skills ... compared to a pre-Columbine incident."
The 1999 Columbine High School massacre that killed 13 and wounded 20 marked what would become almost a regularity in shootings in schools, ranging from Virginia Tech to Sandy Hook. Since then, school safety has become integral in any emergency planning for communities. A tactical drill was held last year with the Northern Berkshire Emergency Planning Committee at Drury High School.
On Friday, four corridors of Sullivan School were used as part of an exercise involving at least 132 participants, 40 of them patients. The wounded were rescued and moved out to the parking area for the three Ts — triage, treatment and transport.
About another 30 were observers, either from private industry or from outside the participating agencies, who will review the action and provide comments. Among participants were more than a dozen each from the public school system and Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, campus police from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, representatives from the state Emergency Management Agency and state police, North Adams Police and Fire departments, North Adams Ambulance Service, and Hinsdale, which sent its Rehab Unit.
Jusino said training for the drill had been occurring on afternoons and evenings for the past month.
"We've methodically done this over and over again and the individuals that weren't able to attend and wanted to participate, you could see the difference in their comfort level," he said.
It's the second live emergency drill local held in North Berkshire so far this year. In June, a mass casualty incident involving a bus crash was staged at the former North Adams Plaza that focused more on Fire Department and emergency medical services response.
The active shooter drill was funded by the Department of Homeland Security and the Northern Berkshire Regional Emergency Planning Committee, and the training is provided by Emergency Response Consulting and Close Range Tactical Consulting.
Tags: emergency committee, emergency drill, emergency preparedness, MEMA, NAAS,
