Emergency services in St. Albert training to better respond to future crisis situations

Emergency services are practicing teamwork in crisis situations at a school in St. Albert over the next few days.

Emergency responders in St. Albert are taking over a school for several days to practice working together in a crisis situation.

The training is happening at the Hillgrove School in the Grandin neighbourhood. Residents can expect to see a large amount of emergency vehicles in the area for the next few days.

RCMP, EMS and firefighters will learn how each organization can respond during any major emergency, not just specific situations.

“We’re not necessarily training specifically just for a school shooter, this type of thing can be used for a gas leak at an arena, it can be used for a fire of a large structure,” said RCMP Insp. Aaron White.

“This is more about bringing together fire and police and saying, ‘Okay, in this event, what do you do? What do I do? How do we do it together?’”

He says in a real crisis situation, there can be a “logistical bottleneck” in the beginning with emergency operations, including communications.

This training will allow them to figure out how to maximize the potential of city resources.

“If we’re not practising using common language, common concepts, common deployment schemes, we wind up in a situation where that’s the first time we did it is when it’s the highest risk (situation),” White said.

In addition to large-scale emergencies, the training can also help with smaller-scale situations like a car crash.

“We’ve had lots of situations here where there’ll be a traffic collision and fire and police arrive and we don’t really know who’s in charge of what,” White said. “This is giving us a system to apply even where there’s (just a) minor injury.”

St. Albert interim fire chief Jeff Austin called the experience “invaluable.”

“We coexist on calls together all the time, but we didn’t have an open dialogue up until this point of understanding one another a little bit better,” he added.

Mayor Scott Olivieri and White echoed sentiments that while St. Albert is a “historically” safe community, that fact can make exercises like this even more important.

“Working together, building those relationships is extremely important, and it ensures that we continue to be as safe as we possibly can here in the community of St. Albert,” said Olivieri.

Files from CTV News Edmonton’s Brandon Lynch