Juneau firefighters and police officers will train this week how to rescue and treat victims during an active shooter event.
It’s only a coincidence that the exercise is being held six weeks after the Parkland school shooting.
Joe Mishler, emergency medical services training officer with Capital City Fire/Rescue, said they had similar training about three years ago.
“We’re basically doing more and more of training of this nature,” Mishler said. “As things are changing and the world we live in, we’re basically trying to work together closer with our police department.”
It’s not about how to hunt down an active shooter. Rather, it’s about how Juneau police officers and emergency medical technicians can work together to safely enter a building just after the shooter has left the scene.
The idea is to get to the victims and rescue them as soon as possible.
“In a shooting event, you’d have people that are dealing with the shooter and that sort of situation, (and) for us to go in,” Mishler said.
He said they’re now training to enter the scene earlier.
“We used to stage for a long period of time until everything was all done and over with. People bled to death during that time,” Mishler said. “Now the idea is for us to go in with law enforcement and they’re basically our security, our protection while we go in and out. They stay with us. We stay with them. That’s what we’re practicing is to move with them as a team.”
Mishler said the training will be conducted by representatives from Alaska State Troopers.
Classroom training will be followed by various exercises with volunteers role-playing shooting victims at the Hagevig Regional Fire Training Center.
The training will be held Tuesday and Wednesday.
Mishler said a total of three dozen career and volunteer firefighters have signed up.
It’s unclear how many police officers will participate.
The Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, or SEARHC, held an active shooter awareness drill March 21 at the Ethel Lund Medical Center.
Fifty employees participated in the hour-long exercise held inside the building before it opened up to patients.
