Exercise Peregrine: Fanshawe reveals new weapon in preparedness
Over the summer, the emergency
management teams at Fanshawe
College unveiled Exercise
Peregrine and revealed the latest
addition to their arsenal of emergency
preparedness: perspective.
Emulating an aggressive shooter loose in R2 Peregrine House, organizers ran a real-time simulation of events in order to observe their emergency procedures in action and find where improvements can or should be made. The "shooter" entered the building and began to move throughout it, opening fire on students and passersby. Outside, London Police worked with EMTs and firefighters to control the scene and attend those participants that were able to escape.
In all, dozens were (mock) wounded and eight people were fatally injured, including the shooter - played in this exercise by Sherry Jacklin, co-ordinator of Fanshawe's Paramedic program.
Organizers declared the exercise a complete success. "Just to be able to create an environment that's safe for us to practice - it's a win," explained Steve Clemens, Emergency Management Supervisor at Fanshawe. "We don't get that opportunity very often, so just having that in itself is great. We have learned where we have gaps, thanks to the practice we know where they are to fill them in."
Students were able to test their skills against a full range of response scenarios, from pursuing and tracking the offender to tending to the victims in the command post and offering support to casualties and their family on scene.
While students in various programs have used similar training scenarios to develop their trauma treatment skills, Exercise Peregrine marked the first occasion where Fanshawe live-tested its response plan on such a level.
"The college has never done a live exercise in this way," said Harry Bakker, Director of Facilities Management at Fanshawe. "The trauma treatment group through different student faculties have done it for numerous years, so we thought it would be a good way to blend testing the college's plan while giving the students an opportunity to test and hone their skills as well."
Students at the Oxford County campus in Woodstock were also given the opportunity to participate in Crisis Management Day alongside emergency forces from the community and drama students from St. Mary's High School and Waterloo Oxford Secondary School.
There, students from the Police Foundations and Practical Nursing programs got hands-on experience working with seasoned professionals as organizers simulated a plane crash, a car collision and a house fire.
It's that commitment to hands-on training that keeps Fanshawe on the cutting edge of such response training, Clemens said. "We have a training program for our emergency management program, and we've gotten to the point now where we're at full-scale exercises ... Now that we're there, we want to stay there. We'd like to see this done on an annual basis."
Emulating an aggressive shooter loose in R2 Peregrine House, organizers ran a real-time simulation of events in order to observe their emergency procedures in action and find where improvements can or should be made. The "shooter" entered the building and began to move throughout it, opening fire on students and passersby. Outside, London Police worked with EMTs and firefighters to control the scene and attend those participants that were able to escape.
In all, dozens were (mock) wounded and eight people were fatally injured, including the shooter - played in this exercise by Sherry Jacklin, co-ordinator of Fanshawe's Paramedic program.
Organizers declared the exercise a complete success. "Just to be able to create an environment that's safe for us to practice - it's a win," explained Steve Clemens, Emergency Management Supervisor at Fanshawe. "We don't get that opportunity very often, so just having that in itself is great. We have learned where we have gaps, thanks to the practice we know where they are to fill them in."
Students were able to test their skills against a full range of response scenarios, from pursuing and tracking the offender to tending to the victims in the command post and offering support to casualties and their family on scene.
While students in various programs have used similar training scenarios to develop their trauma treatment skills, Exercise Peregrine marked the first occasion where Fanshawe live-tested its response plan on such a level.
"The college has never done a live exercise in this way," said Harry Bakker, Director of Facilities Management at Fanshawe. "The trauma treatment group through different student faculties have done it for numerous years, so we thought it would be a good way to blend testing the college's plan while giving the students an opportunity to test and hone their skills as well."
Students at the Oxford County campus in Woodstock were also given the opportunity to participate in Crisis Management Day alongside emergency forces from the community and drama students from St. Mary's High School and Waterloo Oxford Secondary School.
There, students from the Police Foundations and Practical Nursing programs got hands-on experience working with seasoned professionals as organizers simulated a plane crash, a car collision and a house fire.
It's that commitment to hands-on training that keeps Fanshawe on the cutting edge of such response training, Clemens said. "We have a training program for our emergency management program, and we've gotten to the point now where we're at full-scale exercises ... Now that we're there, we want to stay there. We'd like to see this done on an annual basis."
