Disaster Drill
As Close to Disaster as We Want to Get!
by Amber Olbrot
What appeared to be a beautiful, brisk Saturday morning, was the day students realized catastrophe can happen any time ~ anywhere. For some Kankakee Area Career Center (KACC) students who hope to enter the field of public safety or healthcare, this drill provided a great opportunity to practice disaster response techniques.
On October 20th, students gathered together at Kankakee Community College (KCC) to witness and participate in the planned disaster drill.
The City of Kankakee Fire and Police Departments were the master planners of putting this gruesome skit together and have been working together the past five months perfecting all the details.
Obtaining approval from the college and putting the word out was a lot of work for them, but they pulled it together to ensure a huge success. The American Red Cross was also very gracious for supplying food and drinks for all who volunteered to participate.
Alongside our KACC Fire Rescue, Health Occupations and Law Enforcement students, Olivet Nazarene University Disaster Relief and Riverside HealthCare Pre-Medical students and EMT students from both Riverside and Provena St. Mary's came to volunteer- some as victims, some as saviors tending to wounds and organizing rescues.
In a matter of a mere 20 minutes over donuts, make-up artists crafted gashes, wounds, bruises and broken bones plastered to their bodies. If one did not know better, you would think they were real.
By 9:00 a.m., students and coordinators gathered together to receive instruction in order to meet all the regulations of the drill. After all the business was taken care of and the victims were put in their place, the drill began. Thankfully, it was only a drill!
The scenario of this particular drill was to be a typical day on campus when all of a sudden, a student reports there is a fire in the chemistry lab. Fire-fighters come to the scene , one going through the side door. Something was wrong. A moment later, a gun shot was heard and the fire fighter was lying on the ground wounded. More gun shots are heard throughout the building and in a flash, the police arrive, surrounding the campus and getting most of the students out of the building.
One student told the police of small explosions being heard in different parts of the building and of shots are fired. Calls to 911 are made from the building and the school is placed in lock down mode. Reports have been made that the man or men have taken hostages. Students saw one long gun, handguns, and little propane cylinders. KCC staff reports to the police an estimate of 300 students on campus this day.
With the area secured, police enter the building. With extreme caution, they maneuver around to save any hostages they can. Many are saved yet there are some injured and lying in the hallway, screaming help and needing immediate assistance.
SWAT shortly arrived at the scene to capture the shooter(s). They entered the building in a very perfected line formation to ensure a lookout in all directions. Covering all rooms, hallways, and levels, SWAT found students in all different types of rooms and in some cases, thought some may have been the shooters. They searched and released students until they found two shooters in one of the rooms with some hostages. They were forcefully escorted to a police car and taken away to the police station for their crimes. After the entire area was safe and secure, SWAT carried out the wounded, lying in the hallways. All the wounded were taken to Riverside Hospital in Kankakee by various ambulances.
In the end, the shooters were put in jail and the students who survived were free to go and fulfill their future.
Had this been real, it would certainly be an awful memory.
As a student myself, I believe this was a great opportunity to realize how prepared our local public safety and healthcare professionals are in case of a tragedy of this sort and what is at stake ~ saving the lives of others.
