Paramedic Beth White treats an MGCCC nursing student during an emergerncy drill July 8.
It’s 10 a.m. on a sultry, summer day in Gautier. Suumer-school classes are proceeding as usual in the Health and Allied Sciences Building at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College’s Jackson County Campus. Suddenly a gunman walks into the building and heads for a nursing class, where he proceeds to open fire on the unsuspecting students and faculty. By the time it’s over, 17 people are shot…some fatally. Meanwhile, the gunman shoots himself but is still alive and restrained by JC Campus Police Chief Ron Dearmin.
The good news is…this scenario was only an emergency drill held at JC on July 8. Gulf Coast security officers and administrators, as well as local law enforcement agencies and first responders, took part in the “active shooter” exercise. While the drill was being held in the H Building, the rest of the JC Campus was notified of the drill and told to lockdown until the “all clear” signal was given.
“We want to be prepared for any situation,” said Bill Yates, JC Campus dean of Student Services. “This goes along with our National Emergency Management System training. This will help us be proactive instead of reactive if an event like this occurs. This helps smooth out our procedures so we can find out if our system has holes or issues before a real-life situation happened.”
JC Campus nursing students played the roles of shooting victims, while Acadian Ambulance EMT Alan Clampett acted as the gunman.
“It gives us the training that we need,” Clampett said. “It helps us figure out are proficiencies and deficiencies. We’ll have a de-briefing to discuss what went right, what went wrong and how everyone can improve their response times.”
Although it wasn’t real, JC nursing student Callie Pagitt said it felt authentic when the drill began. She acted as a shooting victim during the exercise, and was made up by first responders with fake blood to simulate real wounds. That process is called moulage.
“You don’t realize how real it is until everyone starts screaming,” Pagitt said. “When we were getting made up earlier, it seemed like we were playing dress up or something. But once they started banging on the walls and simulating the gunshots, then it starts getting serious.”
Dr. Jane Brenden, Pagitt’s instructor and JC Campus chair of the Associate Degree Nursing program, said it’s good for the students to see things from a different angle.
“We want students to graduate with an understanding of things from the patient’s perspective, as well as from the nurses perspective,” she said. “This exercise shows them how it feels to actually be in a situation where somebody’s life is going to be in their hands after they graduate.”
Yates also said the JC Campus plans to have more emergency training exercises in the future.
“We hope we never have to do this for real,” he said. “But you have to be ready for anything.”