In response to a mass shooting, a few seconds can make the difference between life and death for victims.
In response to a mass shooting, a few seconds can make the difference between life and death for victims.
That is why, with help from over $4,000 in State of Ohio Emergency Medical Services grant money and donations from University Hospitals EMS Institute, the Chardon Fire Department has trained and equipped a rescue task force to respond to such situations.
Chardon EMS Cpt. John Blauch said after high profile shootings in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., in 2012, doctors and trauma specialists realized the civilians trapped inside could have saved lives lost with training on how to “stop the bleed” from gunshot wounds.
Blauch said in the past, teaching civilians how to apply tourniquets was considered taboo, but the Stop the Bleed program was put together under the Obama administration to educate the public in emergency response techniques.
“If those people had had basic training on tourniquets and how to stop the bleed, many of those people would probably have survived if they had had bleeding control within a few minutes,” Blauch said.
Chardon Fire Department is working closely with the Chardon Police Department and the Geauga County Sheriff’s Office to integrate this national program and train civilians in emergency Stop the Bleed techniques, he said.
Blauch teaches emergency medical technician courses at Auburn Career Center in addition to his duties on the squad. He said with the new gear, a team could enter a “warm zone” once police have neutralized the shooting suspect and — under police escort — tend to critical patients with specialized bandages, tourniquets and blood-clotting chemicals to prevent bleed-out deaths.
“You don’t have weapons, so you’re betting on the police people protecting you, but overall, it’s safe enough,” Blauch said. “The goal is (to carry) just enough supplies — you’re not doing CPR, advanced airways, you’re just going from one patient to another addressing critical bleeds and making sure their airway is open.”
In a mass casualty situation, Blauch said his team would also do a preliminary triage, using color-coded tape to indicate which patients are critical, which need transportation to a hospital and which have already died.
Each bag purchased with the grants and donation money has four to six tourniquets, chest seals, chest needle decompression needles, basic airway devices, Israeli combat dressings, quikclot hemostatic gauze, tape, markers, colored triage tape and a removal stretcher/tarp.
Chardon Fire Department also purchased nine helmets and 12 Kevlar bullet-resistant vests to allow Chardon EMS personnel to go in with armed police officers to treat injured victims.
At a multi-day rescue task force training held Jan. 24-26, local fire and EMS squads were trained by experts Jon Porter and Willie Haines, who have military combat medic experience in Afghanistan and Iraq. Another trainer, Tom Hummel III, is a tactical EMS medic with the Berea Fire Department, as well as the Chardon Fire Department.
Chardon firefighter and medic Jason Gladwell — also a Parma firefighter — joined the training team. Blauch said Gladwell is a national instructor in rescue task force procedures and travels the nation teaching police, FBI, secret service and EMS agencies how to implement the model.
Blauch said Gladwell combined protocols from area rescue task force programs to help Chardon Fire Department create the first formal protocol in Geauga County.
“I think we’re one of the first in at least Geauga to have a formal, standard operating guideline that defines what RTF is, how it’s supposed to function, what we respond with, what the incident commander is supposed to do. It’s pretty formal and a lot of the departments don’t have that.”
Chardon Fire Department is making their plan available to other departments to use and change as needed, since their procedures are not a one-size-fits-all approach.
Fire personnel attended from Munson, Concord, Burton, Montville, Hambden, Thompson, Concord and Kirtland, joining police officers from Perry and Thompson, and Geauga County departments, as well as Geauga County Sheriff’s Office deputies.
Blauch said Chardon Police Chief Scott Niehus and Geauga County Sheriff Scott Hildenbrand are on board with the rescue task force program and Chardon Fire Department will be putting together a mass casualty/active shooter drill in the next few months. The drill will take place at a Chardon school building on an off day or a weekend.
The teams will be confronted with fake victims in makeup and settings simulating a shooting or mass casualty, Blauch said, allowing the task force team go in and respond like they would in a real-life situation.
He said these trainings are important for first responders.
“Our last drill was about one year before the shooting in Chardon (High School),” Blauch said. “You talk to any of our folks, or police or sheriff folks, that was invaluable because it was almost identical.”
People might not want to hear that another situation like the 2012 shooting, which left three students dead, could happen in their community, he said.
“Lightning sometimes does strike twice and we don’t want that to happen, (but) it could be at Walmart, it could be anywhere,” Blauch said. “It’s not just a school shooting anymore.”
