Multiple Jackson County public safety agencies completed a joint training session at Jackson County Middle School this week to better prepare first responders.
Jackson County EMS Public Information Director Derek Woolbright said the training lasted seven hours and covered procedures that agencies do not normally do on an everyday basis. Woolbright said stopping the killing and the dying are the two main goals for law enforcement and EMS during an active attacker situation.
“Our Sheriff’s Department went through some scenarios where they were entering the building and stopping an active attacker,” Woolbright said. “And then we followed those up with scenarios where law enforcement is entering the building with EMS in order to stop the dying.”
Woolbright said he believes the training was very productive. Woolbright said joint training with other agencies is important, as many agencies in Jackson County are stretched thin with personnel.
“There’s not an agency in this county that would tell you that they have enough personnel,” Woolbright said. “We could all use more, and so a lot of times we are cross-training with each other, for lack of a better term, just because we may have to help each other in a different role due to that lack of personnel.”
Woolbright said active attackers are coming up with new ways to conduct attacks. Woolbright said he has seen the training evolve more in the last five years than in the previous 15 years.
“We have a saying in our business that the enemy, or those people who are looking to do bad things, their training, their coming up with new tactics,” Woolbright said. “So we have to make sure we are doing the same thing to be prepared not only to respond to it when it happens, but also to prevent it.”
Woolbright said the public safety agencies have been joint training at least once a year for the last five years. Woolbright said the worst-case scenario can even happen in a rural county like Jackson County.