Ep 71: When Injured Flee A Shooting
Episode 71
Published Mar 11, 2024
Last updated Feb 18, 2026
Duration: 32:42
Episode Summary
Run. Hide. Fight. In today’s episode, we analyze the logistics of dealing with the walking wounded.
Episode Notes
Most Active Shooter Events are not Mass Casualty Incidents, but when they are you need to have a plan in place to deal with those who self-evacuate. Bill Godfrey, Mark Rhame, Kami Maertz, and Adam Pendley discuss the strategies and logistics needed to deal with patients who might not be in the hot or warm zones.
View this episode on YouTube at https://youtube.com/live/5RRrzRpUm6o
Transcript
Bill Godfrey:We spend a lot of time talking about rescuing injured from the hot zone and the warm zone in active shooter events. But what about when the injured flee from the immediate area? How do you deal with that? Coming up today. Stick around.
Welcome to the Active Shooter Incident Management Podcast. My name is Bill Godfrey, your podcast host. I'm joined today by three of our other C3 Pathways NCIER instructors. I got next to me, Mark Rhame. Mark, good to have you back in the house.
Mark Rhame:
Thank you for having me.
Bill Godfrey:
And we have our newcomer, Kami Maertz. Kami, it's good to have you here. Welcome.
Kami Maertz:
Thank you. I appreciate it.
Bill Godfrey:
And our veteran, Adam Pendley. Good to see you back, Adam.
Adam Pendley:
Yeah. I feel like I've just seen you recently.
Bill Godfrey:
Always the comedian. So today we are going to talk about the pattern of injured that flee the immediate area, flee the scene. So obviously we spent a lot of time talking about how we manage and rescue the injured downrange and the hot zone and the warm zone. But today's topic is gonna focus on those that self evacuate. Now, by the very definition, if they've been injured and they've managed to get up and flee on their own, they are by definition at that moment a green patient because they are a walking or a running wounded. But it doesn't mean they're gonna stay that way. So I kind of want to hit this at the high level from the idea of our priorities of active threat, rescue, cleared, and then kind of work our way down if everybody's good with that.
Mark Rhame:
Okay.
Bill Godfrey:
Adam, why don't you lead us off?
Adam Pendley:
Sure. I mean, so we train a lot. Law enforcement all over the country trains on the idea that we definitely have to get into the crisis site and address the active threat, move towards the site of stimulus, take down the active threat. But then very quickly we focus on rescuing the injured. And of course we can potentially do more than one priority at a time depending on the number of resources you have available. But then the other priority that we talk about a lot is clear. We focus a lot on active threat and rescue, but clearing the third priority is still important, not just for an additional threat or some sort of additional suspect maybe, but also to find those that have fled the initial gunshots and might be hiding somewhere, suffering from some injuries. So that clearing becomes an important priority as well because we also know that over the years we have taught civilians from the FEMA material, run, hide, fight, or avoid, deny, defend.
And, and so we know that people are gonna get outta there when the shooting starts in those non-custodial scenes, the adults are gonna try to get out away from the gunfire.
Bill Godfrey:
Interesting. And Kami, when we talk about the people that flee both the injured and the uninjured, some of them in some cases the injured are self transporting to a hospital or to a medical facility to get care. But in a lot of other cases they're just trying to get outta the area of immediate danger and they might flee to a parking lot or they might flee across the street or something along those lines. If they get out of what we would traditionally consider the hot and warm zone, does that mean that we don't have to worry about threats?
Kami Maertz:
No, absolutely not. So what we have to consider in that is the threat has fled among the group that is running from the location. It's another reason it's important for our contact teams to give a good LCAN when they show up on scene, to be able to give that information so that we can set resources for those people who are leaving the area.
Bill Godfrey:
Now you mentioned LCAN.
Kami Maertz:
for your location, conditions, action, and needs.
Bill Godfrey:
Okay, so like a size up report?
Kami Maertz:
Yep. As as soon as first officer gets on scene to tell us what they're seeing, what they're hearing.
Bill Godfrey:
Okay. Now Mark, from a medical perspective, so you've got presumably some injured that are downrange in the hot, and a warm zone and we're either on our way pushing resources to rescue them, or in the process of doing that rescue that may even have been completed or close to being completed, how do you then manage the injured that have fled at the time with green injuries but may not be so green anymore?
Mark Rhame:
So what we practice and what we really prefer our responders to do, is set up that hot warm zone. We contain that area, law enforcement kinda set of perimeters in that inner perimeter, outer perimeter, whatever they establish. And then we have a tactical triage and and transport team that are dealing with everything inside that hot zone and that warm zone. And their concentration is that. So when you're a medical branch at the command post, which is in a cold environment, cold zone, they stand up that command post, they should be thinking right off the bat, "My count for everybody." Is everybody inside of that hot and warm zone? If not, do I need to start thinking about something outside of that area or outside the traditional area that law enforcement is looking for that threat and all those people have been rescued.
And maybe at that point in time, depending on what environment it is, they may wanna establish some kind of a secondary location for a casualty collection point, a treatment location just in case they're starting to come across people who have self evacuated, or you came across them when you starting to clear other structures that are in that environment.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. And it seems to me like the easiest thing to do in that situation, because we're already in that mode, is just to designate a second casualty collection point, that's in that area.
Mark Rhame:
Well I think the problem with that Bill is that are you gonna be correct though? I mean, wherever you select that, there's nothing wrong with saying, "You know what, this may be the most ideal location, but it may not be the correct location." If that makes any sense.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, you're talking about like in the parking lot outside or what do you mean?
Mark Rhame:
Well, if you're saying that, this is my hot and warm zone right here. This is what I've established 'cause this is where the shooting occurred where most of the victims are. But if you're saying, "Well we just need to set up another one at this location," well it may not be where you need to set it up, if that makes any sense. I mean frankly that second CCP should be a place that, "Oh wait a second, we're starting to see more people ran to this parking garage or they ran into that movie theater. Maybe that's our second CCP."
Adam Pendley:
Sure. So Mark makes a great point. We've seen in a lot of incidents where a coffee shop or something that happens to be next door ends up being an ad hoc location where some injured have fled to, they're starting to do some self-care amongst themselves. And so to Mark's point, is rather than from the command post picking a place on a map, you might have to do what we were just talking about. You might have to listen to those initial reports about where people have fled to. And then that brings it full circle to what we're saying, is that that place that the injured kind of already selected as the place they were gonna flee to, that becomes your casualty collection point rather than having to, your outdoor, or your away from the immediate crisis site casualty collection point. And then of course, like we've talked about, you have to name them, right? So if you have a casualty collection point in the crisis site, it needs to be named whatever location it is. And maybe the one that's next door or nearby becomes,
Bill Godfrey:
the coffee shop CCP.
Adam Pendley:
The coffee, exactly right.
Bill Godfrey:
or something like that.
Adam Pendley:
And as long as you're clear about that, I think that all works.
Bill Godfrey:
So assuming that all happens unfolds in the first 10, 15 minutes of this, as you're starting to get your arms around the thing, from the law enforcement perspective, does that mean you've, because you haven't cleared that area, we don't know that there's any, so you gotta adjust your perimeters and that's technically gonna, if it wasn't in our warm zone it is now, and that ,
Kami Maertz:
Absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
we're gonna wrap that or what does that look like?
Kami Maertz:
It's definitely going to determine the size of your perimeter. If you know that people are fleeing from that area, your perimeter's gonna be larger. And one of the things that we always teach, is that you want to set that perimeter larger, that warm zone larger. You can adjust it down smaller, but it's harder to make it bigger. So when you're getting on scene and you're noticing that those perimeters are going to be extended, that's a good thing to keep in mind of where are people fleeing to, where can we get them concentrated in.
Adam Pendley:
Well, and I think the other thing that's really important here, and it's why it's important to discuss the kind of the difference between the injured that you have is that we've also seen in cases where some of those initial RTFs or those initial medical and law enforcement teams that are going into the crisis site, they were sent to a casualty collection point inside where your most critical patients are. Those are the ones that have not been able to evacuate. Those are the ones that law enforcement can't even move because they're so seriously injured. And so it's critically important that those RTFs complete that mission and that they don't get held up by trying to treat patients that run up to them, 'cause, and I'm sure Mark can speak to it in greater detail, but those injured that run up to you and say, "I need help," you don't wanna leave them, but you need somewhere for them to direct them to.
Bill Godfrey:
I think from the medical management perspective, the responsibility falls to that RTF team. They've got a task and a purpose and that's where they're supposed to go. But if something happens, if they get a crowd, they get hung up, then their obligation is to call back to triage, and say, "We are not able to complete that mission. We've been pulled to this, we need another team assigned to our original mission and we suggest you route them this way so that they don't get into," not the same way they went, but, route 'em a slightly different way so that they don't get into kind of the same issues.
Because I think there's a balance there. Depending on the nature of the injuries, you may be able to say, "Yeah, run right over there and we'll be with you in just a minute." Or, the horror of the thing, somebody's running carrying somebody in their arms and you take one look and go, "Okay, this is a critical patient," and it gets you hung up. And I think, Mark, would you agree? I think we've gotta leave that to that RTF team leader to either stay on his original mission and call back and have triage assign another team or one or the other.
Mark Rhame:
I would agree with your point to a certain extent. First off, is that I would never expect any of my team, my medical team to abandon a patient. Frankly, they need to either take care of that patient or get them to a place where they're gonna be taken care of, 'cause you do not wanna say, "If you're injured in any certain degree," say, "Well just head that direction, there's help over there somewhere." No, that's probably the wrong move. Probably the best thing to do, is I think Adam just said a minute ago, is convey that information as quick as possible. You may get overwhelmed at your staging location, which should be again in a cold location. Your staging location may get overwhelmed with people who are uninjured and injured, and all of a sudden instead of deploying people from that location, you're starting to treat right there. Well of course the people in the staging are thinking, "Well this is it, this is all the people that are injured," while in fact it is not. It's probably the place where the shooter was that where majority of the injuries are, especially the serious ones.
So command's gotta quickly realize if we get overwhelmed here, we may have to establish another secondary casual collection point at staging, and for this example, but you're still gonna have to deploy those rescue task force to the original site. So you gotta make sure that you're thinking about that in the back of your head, especially with adults who are going to run. The little guys, probably not, but when you talk about adults, they're probably gonna run, they're gonna hide, they're gonna be in some other location.
So from a command perspective, if you not need to be thinking about that in the back of your head, "Do I need to stand up teams right now? We're already taking care of the threat. We've got a shooter there, we're taking down the threat, we're standing up rescue task force to move into that hot warm zone so we can start working on those patients there. But do I need to start standing up teams, rescue task force, contact teams for the possibility that there's another site we're gonna have to stand up?" Be prepared for it, lean forward. Do not wait for them to declare another site.
Adam Pendley:
Well, and what Mark is saying, actually I think that falls right back on law enforcement that if we are securing a casualty collection point, we've called for the RTF, we can't just call for it one time. Not that we need to screen for it over and over again, but if we're hearing other radio traffic that maybe the RTFs are getting hung up with some patients that are coming out and meeting them halfway, we need to be clear and concise with confirmation on our radio talk, our communication that we still have injured in this CCP and we need an RTF here. So I think patients or injured folks fleeing to and flagging down RTFs or medical personnel create some challenges, but they can be overcome if you follow the process. And that's why it's so important for tactical triage and transport to be standing shoulder by shoulder and working through those problems.
Kami Maertz:
I think especially with that, for tactical to be aware that, that has now created that second CCP. And so are the resources gonna stay there? And if they're gonna stay there, that's fine, but they're making that decision, you are staying here, and we are sending the additional resources to the original CCP, CCP one, CCP two, whatever it was, that those additional resources are getting there. And that tactical doesn't just have a mindset that they're out there, that they know exactly where their resources are.
Bill Godfrey:
It's an interesting challenge. Mark mentioned the idea of patient abandonment, which of course on a normal day-to-day thing, when you're dealing with one patient at a time, no medical EMT would would ever do. In the case of a mass casualty incident, we are by very definition rationing our healthcare. And the whole idea of triage is that before you get engaged in treating anybody, you need to first figure out who is the worst, who is in the most need of treatment that's gonna benefit the most and judge that.
And the challenge in an active shooter event as we're talking about here, is that you're injured can be spread out. And so one of the things that has, and we've talked about this before on other podcasts, one of the things that has become a challenge for the current generation of EMTs and paramedics that are in the field is they've gotten very used to saying, "This is my patient. I'm gonna have another rig or another team take care of that patient over there." And they get tunneled visioned in. And it would be very easy to have a crowd of five or six injured come towards you, and you say, "Okay, I've got two or three medical people with me and I'm gonna start working on these." And then the other team that's supposed to be reassigned to do your original task, that's going to where the critical patients are, comes the same path and then gets hung up in dealing with those couple of other patients. And you've got to remember, you absolutely have to remember, and this is the difficulty of a mass casualty incident, is your first step is to identify the injured and triage 'em. And we can't dump all our resources on the ones that just present right to us.
And I think that's kind of, Mark, I think the balancing point, because right and wrong starts to become a little more gray in the mass casualty incidents. And those can be very difficult decisions to make, especially if people haven't talked about it or thought about it before.
Mark Rhame:
And we get into the struggle when we teach the active shooter incident management class, when we talk about rescue task force. And I really try to convey, and I hear other instructors do the same thing about the first rescue task force that gets on the scene has to take control. I don't mean control from a security wise 'cause law enforcement will always own that environment.
The contact teams own the security of that site and they own the incident command. But that first RTF, especially, when they get into the known casualty collection point, I always say ask two questions. Am I needed? And do I need help? And you need to ask that before you walk in the door. I'm kidding there. Literally has to be done right now because if you wait, you're behind the curve. So if you walk in the room, "Am I needed? Hell yeah, I'm needed. Look at all these patients here." Second thing, "Do I need help? How many do I need?" Do a quick count here, "Gimme three more RTFs," based upon the number count, and then maintain the control EMS wise of that room. Because otherwise you're playing groundhog day.
The next RTF comes in there and they start doing the same thing that you started and the next RTF does it. No you're that first RTF you walk in there and go, "I need more help." When those teams get there, "RTF two, you got those two patients right there, RTF three, you've got those two patients right there." And just start that assigning out while you're starting to treat these people, 'cause you don't wanna start repeating yourself for and over again, 'cause we know what are the two things that are gonna kill those people. It's a threat. And what else?
Adam Pendley:
The clock.
Bill Godfrey:
The clock.
Mark Rhame:
The clock. And you're going to eat up the clock if you do the same thing over and over again. So you've gotta take control of that room from a medical perspective, your first RTF that gets there.
Bill Godfrey:
And the other thing that I'll add on to that, 'cause, Mark, I think is right on the money talking about that first RTF through the door, the thing to remember is it's the first RTF through the door at that CCP location.
Mark Rhame:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
So you might be the first RTF through the door where the shooting occurred in the warm zone downrange. But then 10 minutes later you might be the first RTF to get to the coffee shop and go, "Holy crap, there's five or six people that have been shot in here." And it's the same thing that you've gotta employ there.
Mark Rhame:
Exactly.
Bill Godfrey:
Is to take charge of it, and kind of manage it.
Now I do want to shift gears a little bit and talk about when is the right time to set up a treatment area. So, we teach routinely... Let me back up even a step further. Most active shooter events are not mass casualty incidents, they're not. The median number shot is three, and of those three shot, one is killed. That's not a mass casualty incident for anybody to have two viable patients that you need to treat. That said, they can be mass casualty incidents. And what we're really talking about here, where you've got people that have fled where the violence occurred and so you've got injured that have fled, you've got injured that are still downrange, we are tending to talk more, presumably about a mass casualty incident.
And so normally in these things, the numbers are not high enough to warrant a separate treatment area, it just becomes a delay. You want to triage 'em, do whatever emergent stabilizing treatment you need to do right there at point of care and then get 'em on an ambulance off the scene. So when you suddenly have enough patients that are overwhelming the number of ambulances you've got, and I would narrow it down to that one thing,
Mark Rhame:
One thing.
Bill Godfrey:
It's not even so much about the people, it's about the transport assets. When you now have a number of patients and you do not have an adequate number of transport vehicles, whether it's ambulance, whether it's the back of a pickup truck, improvising, whatever the case may be, that's when I think you need to put engage, you put in place a treatment area and engage in that extra step to try to continue to provide treatment while we're waiting for transport assets to work.
So Mark, I'd like you to comment on that and then I want the two of you to talk about what security implications that could happen for you, that we've set up a treatment area that people may be, we may be moving them from CCPs to this treatment area. Mark?
Mark Rhame:
Yeah, and I agree with you that that treatment area is a clock killer. I mean literally, if that's your first thought, I gotta stand up at treatment location. Well in fact you don't need it because you've gotta transport units to get the critical patients off the scene quickly. But again, if those treatments or those injuries, especially minor injuries, overwhelm your transport units, then a treatment area makes sense. But what we haven't been talking about and we cannot dismiss is we're talking about trauma. What about medical calls? What about the person who has chest pains, has a stress issue, they're normally a diabetic
Bill Godfrey:
A seizure.
Mark Rhame:
and they let yeah, seizure. Whatever happens to be, we need to be prepared for that also because those medical issues are gonna crop up. And especially if this thing marches on where we're not transporting these people immediately, we're holding 'em because they're not our critical patients, these other people are trying to get 'em to a trauma center. We're trying to get 'em under a surgeon's knife because that's how they're gonna survive.
These other people, we tend to hold off to the side, but we can't put them out of our minds. So then that treatment center, hopefully it's a very secured, hopefully indoor place, but if not we need to create that environment and then start a treatment environment there and start triaging those people out and saying, "Okay, priority here, this is my least priority. These one, when I get a transport unit as soon as I can, I'm gonna get 'em off the scene. These people here are going to go last." But we also may have to send those to the farthest location away and it may be another community or an hour away because they're not my priority right now. My priority is these people who have been shot, especially the ones that have been shot between their chin and their navel. There's not much I can do for 'em on the scene. I gotta get 'em to a trauma center.
Adam Pendley:
Absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
Agreed.
Adam Pendley:
So I mean the first security issue that comes to mind is one of the things we talk about a lot is that there are more jobs that need to be done. So we stress over and over again that not every law enforcement officer on the scene can go inside. We need some to stay with the RTFs, law enforcement needs to be aware of the treatment group area concept that hey, when there's a number of patients, we may have to secure that as well. It's a job that's different even from perimeter. Like you have to have a security element there with the treatment group as well. And it's just, like we've talked about many times, the clock is running at all of these locations, right? So we have to work so well together to make sure that we're communicating and doing what we need to do.
Kami Maertz:
And I think even that and considering if it's gonna be an inside or outside, depending on the resources that are available for security purposes, is that an inside facility is gonna be a lot easier to get containment on, than the outside, and those are gonna have to be special circumstances that you're gonna have to consider from command and tactical and triage, and staging to get the right resources in.
Mark Rhame:
But let me emphasize something Bill on this, and I know we briefly talked about it a second ago, but what I would warn the people who are in the command post, the incident commander, the law enforcement branch, and the medical branch, when they're stood up, is that sometimes they feel like they need to do something. I've got a tactical officer, I've got a triage officer, I've got a transport officer who are in that hot warm zone and they're doing stuff, they're doing god's work. They're out there taking down the threat, and doing the medical work. They feel like, "Well I've got to do something."
I would caution those people say, "As a medical branch, well I'm just gonna stand up a treatment group because I want to do something." No, you're wasting your time and resources. If your teams are doing the work that you've put them in the position to do, you should stand back there and go, "This is the greatest, this scene is working really well. I've got great people in this job or in these positions and I'm just gonna support their mission." You don't have to do it unless it's necessary. As we talk about a treatment group, or a secondary CCP, if you don't need it, don't do it. You're wasting time is what you're doing.
Bill Godfrey:
And Kami, I was gonna piggyback off of something you said a second ago. You mentioned relocating it to the inside or moving 'em to the inside, 'cause it's a lot easier to secure the inside, so the outside. And it made me think, on the fire and EMS side, on the medical side of this, we need to be prepared for those conversations with law enforcement. If the law enforcement officers, whether they're part of our RTF or whether they're just additional law enforcement officers, a contact team part of perimeter says, "I need you to move these people inside." We need to be prepared to hear that and not give 'em a bunch of lip.
And I'm reminded of the one incident that occurred, West Coast, the fire department who did EMS did not coordinate at all with law enforcement and picked their triage location and their treatment location and they picked the middle of an intersection, which was great for them. And it was completely exposed and ironically directly exposed to the attack building where the attacker had fled and location unknown, and law enforcement was desperately trying to then react. They had not only the building of concern, but now they've got the fire department who just compounded their problem and failed to coordinate that with it. And we wanna make sure that we're not those guys and gals, you know?
Mark Rhame:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
If we're prepared for that conversation and if law enforcement says, "Hey, from a security perspective, we need to move." But I think that needs to be part of the keywords as well. I mean, if you said, "Hey, move those people inside," I may not be very receptive to that.
Kami Maertz:
Absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
But if you said, "From a security perspective,"
Kami Maertz:
Absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
"We gotta get these people inside, we can't cover you out here." That's gonna get my attention.
Mark Rhame:
Well, it's what we preach to this whole class, the active shooter incident management concept is it's an integrated response and if you don't integrate it, if you don't stand tactical, triage, and transport next to each other and their game plan is one and the same, you're gonna fail. If the command post is siloed, if you have a command post for law enforcement, one for fire EMS,
Bill Godfrey:
Oh god,
Mark Rhame:
if you silo those, you're gonna fail. Every after action report you look at where there was failures, most of 'em will come back and say, "Well, we siloed our command posts, we had a command post for a law enforcement and one for fire EMS and they didn't coordinate their efforts." If you integrate your response, if you put 'em together and they come up with a singular concept of what they wanna do, and their action plan is one and the same, you shouldn't have those issues. So long as all the information is flowing downhill and getting to the right people.
Adam Pendley:
And I would go one step further and say, it's not just integrated response. You have to do integrated training
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Adam Pendley:
and preparation as well.
Mark Rhame:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
Exactly.
Adam Pendley:
These conversations all have to happen before the crisis day, to think through some of these scenarios where it gets a little unusual, and some creative problem solving. I mean another West Coast incident with a more positive result. Many, many patients all over the place, and they used some of the recall of off-duty firefighters and paramedics to go to the urgent care centers and to some other places that were being overwhelmed by patients. So that was a smart use of resources to try to supplement what was going on.
And so I think, when you, again, fortunately, they're not all mass casualty incidents, but it is worth giving some effort to thinking about the ones that are, that have patients that flee, and hide in other buildings, hide in portalets, that hide under the stage, that hide in a number of places where you have to sort all that out.
Bill Godfrey:
And I think the other thing that we've gotta remember, Mark, you alluded this, you come up with a singular plan, and typically on the command side, things do flow downhill. I think we also have to remember on the command side, especially at the command post, you've gotta listen to your troops that are working for you. If your RTF calls triage and says, "I need to move this," or, "I need to make this change," or, "The ambulance exchange point we've selected is not working well," we don't necessarily at the command level need to understand why.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
We just need to listen to the troops and as you said, support 'em and react them. And I think it's kinda like, and I've heard heard this in a couple of after actions and examples where they've ended up with a fire department command post and a separate law enforcement command post. And the story almost always sets off the same. Law enforcement isn't quite ready to get their command post stood up. So fire department just sets one, takes command on their own. Law enforcement gets to that point, but then we're unwilling to break ours down and move it.
And I think that's one of the places that we get tripped up and I could see that happening here. You've got a second or even a third casualty collection point that stood up and it's outside the coffee shop and you're trying to work on that. And now law enforcement's saying, "I need you to move them inside the coffee shop and we cannot load the ambulances in the front. We need to load the ambulances in the back of the building." And all of a sudden this plan that you've been crafting goes right out the window and there's a tendency to be resistant to that. And I understand it, but you can't, you've gotta listen to the people that are downrange.
Mark Rhame:
Yeah. The boots on the ground have the best vision of what's going on, and we run into this in classes on a regular basis where for some reason the command post thinks, 'cause they can look in a map and go, "Well that's a good place for it," when in fact are they the ones with the greatest vision of what's going on? I would say, no. You gotta trust your people and that means from the command post perspective, "Contact one, what is your perspective?" You know, if you ask the question, what is your best location for a casualty collection point? Let them be the ones to make the decision, 'cause they're the ones that gotta move the patients, not you from the command post. They're the ones that gotta treat the patients and move 'em to an ambulance exchange point. Trust them to make the right decisions and support their mission.
Bill Godfrey:
Sure.
Adam Pendley:
Right. It's the phrase I use is, is this is one of those circumstances where it's okay to delegate up and have them accomplish some tasks that need to be get done because you have the best eyes on the scene. We're so used to managing, whether it's sergeants or lieutenants on the police side, being able to kind of see the whole picture and then make command decisions from there, or the battalion chief who's running the fire ground, they can see almost everything. That's not often gonna be the case in these types of scenarios.
Bill Godfrey:
Very true. All right, we'll wrap it up. Lightning round. Mark, final thoughts or comments. And I'll go around the table.
Mark Rhame:
One thing that I would recommend if you've got especially a large scene going on where especially like the outdoor ones where you have this belief that maybe a lot of people ran off and you're in the command post, if you're in the medical branch or maybe you're a law enforcement branch, is probably stand up some strike teams when you have capability doing so, once your resources have been already met for the known threat, that known environment, stand up a couple RTFs and maybe a couple contact teams say, "Stay in staging. As we start clearing, as we're getting more intel, we may deploy you." But lean forward, build those teams out before even anyone asks for it. Have them ready to go once you get the resources necessary to do that.
Bill Godfrey:
All right. Kami.
Kami Maertz:
I think one of the things we mentioned is really is trusting in your training so you can trust in your people. So, make these relationships beforehand, trusting your training, do good training and then you can trust your people to do the job they need to do.
Adam Pendley:
And I would say incorporate this into exercises. Oftentimes we see active shooter exercises where the teams, they get to go from one fixed location, they're directed to another fixed location,
Mark Rhame:
Very clean environment.
Adam Pendley:
very clean environment. So, incorporate the idea that maybe from the room that you're sent to, you learn that there are five people missing and that you then have to account for them. And nothing wild, but just the idea that you have to make sure you account for all the people that may have fled.
Bill Godfrey:
And Mark, I'm gonna tag on to yours. I think the note about standing up a quick reaction force, if you will, in staging is a really, really good one. If you do have one of these that is a mass casualty, and I'm gonna say more than you know, 10 patients, if you do have one of these that's a mass casualty, the chances that you're gonna get the echo calls or the ghost calls, or those secondary calls because somebody has fled to another location. And now we think, and Vegas is the best example of that because they had follow on calls at all the hotels, and they didn't have shooting at those calls, but what they did have was injured at all of those locations.
And so you still have to push out the RTFs, you still have to get those locations secured, just like we're talking about now. So I love the idea when you've got enough resources in staging and for most of the country, not everywhere, but most of the country people are gonna show up. If you get 'em in staging and you've got some extras, get 'em organized into a QRF and be ready to deploy 'em and let command know. If command didn't think of it, that's okay. Let them know you've got a team ready to go. Well thank you everybody for coming in. I think this is a great topic.
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