Multiple agencies participate in active shooter drill

Last October, Encinitas Deputy Fire Chief Jon Blumeyer was attending the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival with his wife and friends when a shooter started firing into the crowd. Though Blumeyer was shot in the leg twice, he continued to help the wounded.

Blumeyer furthered that help the morning of Sept. 22, by sharing his firsthand experience in dealing with an active shooter with a group of first responders who had gathered to participate in an active shooter drill at Bonsall Elementary School.

“When we were there, there were hundreds of people that were helping the victims,” Blumeyer said. “Just like me, they weren’t prepared for this – they were there to have fun. There were trained people, off duty police, fire, military and all these people, but we had nothing there to work with. We were making tourniquets out of T-shirts, out of bandanas and whatever we had available.”

Blumeyer addressed all aspects of tactics that are necessary in active shooter situations like the one he endured – including the toll the tragedy took on him personally.

“I’ve been doing it for 30-something years – we’ve all done a lot of this stuff, we’ve seen horrible things during our careers – but we’ve all looked it from a different perspective because we respond to it,” Blumeyer said. “We manage to prepare ourselves, put up those mental blocks that we have, and we have the support of our co-workers and everyone as we’re going through this.

“When this event happened, I had none of that initially,” Blumeyer said.

Blumeyer said he’s been dealing with post-traumatic stress since that day and it was a couple of months before the nightmares went away. He said it was the support of the community, co-workers and other first responders that helped him get through it.

“Have a system in place to support your folks when these sorts of things happen…it is huge,” Blumeyer said. “It makes a big difference. Get people to talk to and then watch your folks for that PTSD. Watch for those signs of stress because they will be there in one form or another. So, take care of your folks.”

After a pre-drill meeting at North County Fire Protection District Station Five in Bonsall, the teams moved over to begin the drill at Bonsall Elementary.

The exercise included the San Diego Sheriff’s Department, North County Fire Protection District, Oceanside Fire Department, Pala Fire Department, Pendleton Fire Department, Carlsbad Fire Department, Vista Fire Department and Cal Fire.

“Unfortunately, we don’t get to do this nearly enough,” Sgt. Patrick Yates of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said.

Yates noted all the people involved in the drill.

“We have role players at the school, school administrators, multi-agencies, volunteers, district employees – all the people it takes to make this happen,” Yates said. “We’d like to do it more often. But when we do it, we like to do it right and we like to involve as many people as possible, because it’s the kind of thing that when it does kick off, we want to be the best we can at dealing (with it) and help as many people as possible.”

Yates said making the drill happen is a lot of work.

“Do we have the right personnel to come in and do the training and run through the training to make it as realistic as possible?” he said. “So, it takes a lot of work and a lot of time and we invite many, many people to participate.”

With multiple agencies working, along with volunteers from Fallbrook High School participating as victims in the drill, officials emphasized safety for all of those involved, taking precautions every step of the way.

Safe words such as “yellow” were provided to the volunteers in case they were being handled too rough, and the drill could be paused by first responders by using the phrase “terminate drill” in case something went wrong.

“The most important thing is safety,” Yates said. “We hope everybody leaves with what it’s going to entail to deal with a mass casualty shooter event, and we try to make it as chaotic as it will ever be. We hope that everybody, especially those that are making the decisions, are better prepared so we can give the best service that we can.”

According to North County Fire Protection District captain paramedic and public information officer John Choi, it took about two months to put the drill together.

“This is a big undertaking,” Choi said. “As you see, you’ve got law enforcement here from multiple jurisdictions, you’ve got multiple fire agencies. To get all these ambulances, engines, cars here, it takes a lot of collaboration from all these different agencies to come here.”

The drill was a simulated a single active shooter situation on the campus of Bonsall Elementary with multiple casualties and injured students and faculty. It was planned so that very few people involved knew the scenario. This time, in addition the active shooter, a bomb detonated on the campus.

“This is an unfortunate scenario that we’ve painted,” Choi said. “We hope that we never have an active shooter event in Fallbrook, Bonsall and Rainbow. However, if we did, we’re prepared. These types of drills prepare us for things we don’t ever want to see in our career. But if we do, we want to know what to do and how effectively we can manage working with our collaborating partners.

“This is new, the idea of partnering up with law enforcement and going into what we would consider a hostile environment,” Choi said. “This is normal for military personnel that go into this environment and anticipate being shot at while you’re dressing wounds, but for us, this is not normal.”

Choi said his agency recently purchased ballistic gear for its personnel.

“That’s our purchased gear so that we can go into these hazard zones and help those that have been shot or hit with a blast like those here today,” he said.

Working with agencies near and far is an important part of the process of training effectively, Choi said.

“We’re all cut from the same cloth, as you see, we have a heart and desire to put ourselves in harm’s way,” Choi said. “For us, it’s a great working relationship. We have to have that kind of working relationship so that when we go into these kinds of environments, I can rely on them to watch my six and they know that I am doing everything in my care to provide care for them and the victims on the ground.”