Is The City of Fairfax Ready for a School Shooting?

Since June of 2011 the City of Fairfax Fire Department, along with the City of Fairfax Police Department, have performed several drills to put together the final touches on a new concept called the Rescue Task Force Program.

The Rescue Task Force is designed to reduce the time it takes for injured patients to receive lifesaving care in the case of an active shooter scenario. The task force consists of at least two paramedics from the fire department protected by four police officers.  This group enters the building or area where the shooter has injured victims and immediately begins treating and removing them from the danger area, even while the shooter is still at large and continuing the rampage. This is a vast improvement over past practices where injured victims could not be removed until the perpetrator was apprehended.

Paramedics are immediately treating the victims using advanced techniques such as clotting agents, tourniquets, chest decompressions, and surgical airways. Studys show that most victims of this type of trauma die in the first several minutes from severe extremity bleeding, airway compromise, or collapsed lungs. All of these conditions can be treated by paramedics getting to victims rapidly and giving these life saving treatments. If needed, even before the victims are removed from the building. 

Training has been held at the closed Westmore Elementary School building to simulate a school shooting. In addition to City of Fairfax Police other police jurisdictions from George Mason University, Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office, and the State Police have participated. We have used many volunteers to simulate injured victims. Injuries simulated during our training have ranged from those having an emotional crisis to those inflicted with multiple gunshot wounds. 

Overall the training has been a huge success and the city’s Rescue Task Force program has been in effect for nearly a year now. This progressive new team makes the city one of only two jurisdictions in the area to have such a program, the other being Arlington County.

A big thank you goes out to Battalion Chief John Ahrens and Fire Medic Marc Racette for their hard work and dedication in putting this program together and organizing the continual training necessary to maintain readiness for such a catastrophic event.