Page 18 - Occupational Health & Safety, October 2018

FACILITY SAFETY
signed as a layer of protection to slow down and frustrate attackers, thus buying time for people to escape and/or law enforcement to arrive and intervene. It is designed to work in conjunction with a facility’s Emergency Operations Plans.
Churches also have felt the need to teach worshippers how to respond in case of an active shooter. Marvin Rutter, who worked in law enforcement for 26 years, now directs the safety and security team at a school and church in central Ohio. The church’s pastor asked him a decade ago to evaluate its security protocols. “When the pastor came to me and said he wanted to start a security ele- ment, I said ‘Are you kidding me? I don’t think it’s necessary.’ I told him we need to pray about this. I never dreamed we’d be where we are today. People carrying guns in a house of worship? It takes me by surprise, but when you look at the nationwide statistics, it’s something we need to do,” Rutter said.
Rutter’s security team includes 42 members on four units. They are prepared to attend to the medical needs of their members if an attack occurs. “You have to get in, you have to get your hands dirty,” Rutter said. “You have to be prepared mentally and physically for what might happen.”
Tool Time
Proper and intense training can help save lives in an active shooting tragedy. It is also essential, however, to have on hand the equipment necessary to treat victims. Businesses and other groups should have trauma dressings, gloves, gauze, tape, scissors, emergency blankets
and tourniquets stored nearby. Silverback offers a Basic Improvised Trauma Treatment kit (BITT Kit) that includes the supplies people will need in case of an active shooting situation.
Platoni said lives could have been saved at Fort Hood if the proper tools had been available. “People were using underwear, belts, anything they could grab,” she said. “People were throwing computers off tables to get the tablecloths to use as blankets. There were no medical supplies at all.” Now, Platoni keeps a kit in her office at all times. She learned firsthand the importance of being adequately prepared with training and equipment in case an active shooter decides to create workplace mayhem.
“I think training should be mandatory,” Platoni said. “In this day and age, no one can say that they will never be a target. Whether you’re an elementary school student or on the assembly line at Honda, you could be a victim in the line of fire. I know that firsthand.”
Thomas Renner (trenner@catalystmc.com) writes for many United States trade publications on a wide range of topics.
REFERENCES
1. https://www.fbi.gov/about/partnerships/office-of-partner-engagement/ active-shooter-incidents-graphics
2. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/active-shooter-how- to-respond-2017-508.pdf
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jgS7jBXZU4&app=desktop
Noise Dosimeters
415 Lawrence Bell Drive, Unit 4, Buffalo, NY 14221
T: (800) 366 2966
E: info-us@casellasolutions.com
• Simultaneously measures all workplace parameters
• Intrinsically safe
• Octave band analysis
• Audio recording
• Motion sensor
• Wireless data transmission
Come visit us at NSC, Houston 22-24 Oct 2018 | Booth 1739 casellasolutions.com
Circle 22 on card. See us at NSC, Booth 1937
18 Untitled-1Oc1cupational Health & Safety | OCTOBER 2018 www.o9h/7s/1o8nl9in:4e9.AcMom