Page 14 - Occupational Health & Safety, October 2018

FACILITY SAFETY
an entirely new level with authentic simulations that bring extraor- dinary detail to proper active shooting response. People need to make quick decisions under high duress while also coping with the loss of fine motor skills caused by the stress of the event. The best way to improve those skills is to practice them under the intense pressure that will evolve during an active shooting event. Class- room education is far different than the experience that can only be acquired through hands-on training.
Kathy Kelsheimer, an assistant to Lt. Col. Dave Grossman and a staff member of the Killology Research Group, is an expert on active attacker response and survival training. She participated in a training exercise that simulated a shooting incident in Orlando, Fla. Fifty people died in that incident. In a training session conduct- ed by Silverback Safety & Training Solutions of Ohio, Kelsheimer said a trained emergency responder froze on the first run-through when confronted by the life-like scenario that included flash bangs, diminished lighting, and noise similar to that of the concert hall.
“It was eye-opening,” Kelsheimer said. “People need to practice drills. When you lose fine motor skills, and you go to lock a door and you can’t do it, that’s very surprising. If you’re sitting in a class- room, book learning is a lot different than the real situation. That person might have gotten an A on the written test. But in the mo- ment of truth, he froze. Because of the training, he will know that if he has to go into a situation like that, his body could shut down. He will know that he will be expected to handle the noise and the pres- sure after he successfully completed the training, and also knows he
is now capable of responding safely and effectively.”
Business Class
Greg Buxton joined 15 other employees at his workplace for 22 hours of training with Silverback during one weekend last year. The plant employs nearly 1,500 workers over three shifts, and Buxton, a medical team captain, prepared a presentation for company ex- ecutives to demonstrate the critical need for training for an active shooting event.
“I think some people felt, ‘We’re going to sit there and put tour- niquets on,’” said Buxton, an engineering coordinator at the plant. “This is training for a tactical environment. It’s not sitting at a table and slapping on Band-Aids. It was like taking normal training and putting it on steroids times 10.”
Workers from each shift attended the class and learned how to apply tourniquets and chest seals, wound packing, bleeding con- trol,andhowtosurviveanactiveshootersituation.“Afterthetrain- ing, it’s all the employees talked about,” Buxton said. “We were kind of in a rut as a team, and the training invigorated us. Now, as teams, we all know what to expect from each other.”
Buxton said employees also realized the skills they learned could carry over to places away from the work environment. “Ap- plying a tourniquet or packing a wound could apply in a car acci- dent on the way home from work. It’s never a waste of time to help somebody,” Buxton said. “The way I see it, it’s just another tool in the tool belt.”
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