Police said including them gives other emergency responders better understanding
<p
AUSTINTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) - Police officers, firefighters and paramedics worked together on Thursday to train for a mass casualty situation, should one ever happen here.
It may be just a drill but in the halls of Austintown Elementary, firefighters and Lane LifeTrans ambulance staff trained alongside police.
"When we do this training, we all get a better understanding of what everyone goes through and how to better work together," said Austintown Fire Lt. Brandon Wirtz.
This is only the second year fire and rescue personnel have been included on the inside for the Austintown Police Department's active school shooter exercise.
Officers said including those entities gives them a better understanding of what goes on.
"Now they see what they're doing so they realize now that, obviously, there's a certain process that we have to evolve to to get them to come in, so the zone or the area is warm for them or somewhat safe so we can escort them in and they can go ahead and start their trauma triage," Austintown Police Lt. Tom Collins said.
"Going in with PD, we can't go past them even though we have that urge, that we want to run to the victim and help them," said paramedic supervisor Robin Silvestri. "We have to wait until they tell us, 'OK, you're clear to go that way.'"
Emergency responders said this is a great way for everyone to work together and get to know what to do should something like this ever happen.
Leave a Reply 0 comments