A day after Marion General Hospital held an active shooter drill, a woman opened fire at a Maryland drugstore distribution center, killing three people.
That latest of many mass shootings illustrates the importance of being prepared locally.
“It’s very important that we do this and prepare for it because these incidents are occurring across the country,” Wayne Landers, director of public safety for Forrest General Health Systems, which manages the Columbia hospital, said. “We train on a regular basis, and we need to be as prepared as we can to protect the community, our patients and our staff.”
At Wednesday morning’s training, Marion General staff was joined by people from Forrest General Hospital, the Columbia Police Department, Marion County Sheriff’s Office, AAA Ambulance Service, Marion County Emergency Management Agency and the Columbia Fire Department.
Constable Robbie Gill played the part of the shooter and was tracked by law enforcement as he made his way through the hospital. Evaluators watched the response of police and hospital staff and afterward met to discuss policies and procedures.
Landers said the drills and instructional time could help save lives.
“Training is so important,” he said. “You can read a policy, and that’s a good thing, but until you practice it, you really don’t have a clear understanding.”
Marion General Hospital Administrator Alania Cedillo said even as a drill the exercise was a “little unnerving.”
“It definitely reiterated to me the importance of training and doing things like this to really put a live simulation in place so our employees can think through their response. We do lots of education both in person and on paper about active shooter, but there’s nothing in my mind that can be better than having this (drill),” she said.
Columbia Police Chief Michael Kelly said he recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Fire Chief Jeff McKenzie and Mayor Justin McKenzie mandating that the fire department and the police department start to train together to be able to work together during a crisis, such as an active shooter.
“We call it – stop the killing, stop the dying, rapid evacuation of the injured to get them to advanced medical care,” Kelly said. “Today you saw the police officers go in and stop the killing; they eliminated the threat. After that, you saw the rescue task force being activated and they were escorted in by police officers. These are firefighters with special training. They were able to take care of the patients and evacuating them to ambulances.”
Pictured Above: Constable Robbie Gill, portraying a shooter at Marion General Hospital, is taken into custody by Columbia Police Department officers Justin Corley, Chris Bush and Ryan Williams Wednesday. | Photo by Mark Rogers
