Sanborn, Iowa — Ambulance and fire departments from around O’Brien County, along with law enforcement officers from the Sanborn, Sheldon, and Hartley Police Departments, and the O’Brien County Sheriff’s Office responded to the HMS Middle School in Sanborn Saturday morning to hone their skills on a situation they hope they never have to face.
At 10:00 Saturday morning, all O’Brien County EMS and fire services were paged for an active shooter drill at the middle school in Sanborn. KIWA talked with O’Brien County Sheriff Allen Schuknecht before the drill began Saturday morning, and he told us that this particular drill was for ambulance and fire services.
Once the EMS crews began to arrive on scene, law enforcement officers guided them into the building to where the middle school students and teachers who were playing victims were located. The EMS crews then assessed each wound, and removed the wounded to a triage area that had been set up at the bus barn, across the street to the south of the school building.
O’Brien County EMA Coordinator Jerad Johnson says the triage area was set up with three different color tarps so that the crews evacuating the wounded from the building knew which area to take their patient to, based upon condition and nature of wound.
Once the wounded reached the triage area, ambulances from around O’Brien County began transporting them to the Sanborn Ambulance Garage, which served as a substitute for the area hospitals that would take the wounded in a real situation.
Johnson, who organized Saturday morning’s drill, says he was very pleased with the way everything went.
The drill began with the page of the county’s EMS and fire crews at 10:00 am, and less than 30 minutes later not only were all the emergency responders from around O’Brien County on-scene, they had also managed to remove every wounded student from the building and take them to the triage area.
Everyone involved in the drill was practicing to be ready for a day they hope and pray never comes.
Some images of Saturday’s drill can be seen below.
