Thousand Oaks, Calif., Bar Shooting Underscores Several Points for EMS to Consider

The shooting at Borderline Bar & Grill, a country music bar in Thousand Oaks, Calif., the second-largest city in Ventura County, highlights several key areas EMS/Fire/Rescue/police agencies should consider during similar incidents. 1. Formal mass casualty incident triage may be delayed. According to the FBI, most shootings are over in five minutes. First-arriving EMS crews must be ready to take on, triage, treat and transport patients immediately upon arrival. Therefore, crews coming in minutes later may be the ones required to set up formal triage, patient collection and treatment areas. This image made from aerial video shows Ventura Fire Department EMS Command in the vicinity of a shooting in Thousand Oaks, California, early Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. Photo KABC via AP 2. Each and every rig should be well-supplied for triage. Because of the speed of injury presentations at active shooter incidents, it’s critical that personnel carry—and be ready to deploy—triage tags and supplies from active shooter/stop-the-bleed caches in each ambulance. Every kit carried/used by crews should be well-stocked with at least 10 triage tags (in addition to 100 others carried for massive MCIs), so there’s no delay in starting and performing triage. 3. Be ready to immediately treat law enforcement personnel. EMS crews must be cognizant of the fact that officers will converge and enter active shooting areas quickly. At this incident, Ventura County Sheriff Sgt. Ron Helus arrived in...
Source: JEMS Special Topics - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Training Exclusive Articles Terrorism & Active Shooter Source Type: news