OVIEDO, Fla. – At the Oviedo Mall, 60 local officers, deputies, EMS and other responders took part in a three-day course designed to help them prepare for active-shooter situations and attacks.
“We have a responsibility to go back to the drawing board and say, ‘What can we learn from this particular scenario?’” said Sheriff Dennis Lemma of Seminole County. “Of course, when you look at Parkland, what has happened here in the state of Florida, there are a lot of lessons that you can learn from these examples.”
“In this call, they’re responding to a school, a school shooting, and they’re working as a team, they’re communicating,” explaine Terry Nichols, Executive Director of the National Center for Integrated Emergency Response (NCIER).
“In this call, they’re responding to a school, a school shooting, and they’re working as a team, they’re communicating,” explained Terry Nichols, executive director of the National Center for Integrated Emergency Response (NCIER).
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Nichols mentions that they conduct courses with several agencies across the nation.
“Yes, great demand for this class,” Nichols said, answering a question of whether there’s been more demand for the classes over the last year. “We have about 190 communities on a waitlist to host this class.”
Nichols notes that they utilize a national curriculum certified with the Department of Homeland Security which is updated every three years to teach first responders to handle crises with realistic challenges such as arrival times, waiting times to support wounded victims, and more.
“The big change was really getting the EMS and fire working together. We’re sending our fire and EMS partners into crisis sites where historically they waited outside,” Nichols said.
Officials say that agencies also take what they learn from this training to establish courses for other first responders in their departments.
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