Communication a key lesson in a school shooting simulation

At College Boreal on Wednesday, students and emergency responders took part in a mock school shooting to hone their crisis response skills.

On Wednesday morning, there was a large-scale simulation of a school shooting at College Boreal in Sudbury.

It was a learning opportunity for everyone involved, including students in the paramedic, police and nursing programs, EMS and Greater Sudbury Police.

Nick Bernard-Barry is graduating from the paramedic program at College Boreal and has already been hired by EMS in Sudbury.

Bernard-Barry headed incident command in the school shooting simulation.

“In this simulation today, the most important thing I learned was how communication is the biggest part in these disasters,” he said.

“With all the chaos going on, it really is one of the only things you can control. And when you lose it, it’s when you lose kinda’ of yourself the control that you have in this situation where you have very little.”

Officials with the paramedic program said communication and a collaborative, team approach are the goals of simulating a large-scale disaster.

“(Should) this occur, the students in their working environment will be able to respond better and activate all the proper channels,” said Rene Lapierre, paramedic program coordinator.

The simulation of an active shooter in a school involved 125 people and was a training exercise for students, EMS and the Greater Sudbury Police Emergency Response Unit.

“With a scenario like this, we get to practise and prepare our minds in the event it does happen in the future,” said Sgt. Jason Gagne of the Greater Sudbury Police emergency response unit.

• Download the CTV News app now
• Get local breaking news alerts

A tactically trained paramedic also took part in the simulation. They work in collaboration with the emergency response unit during high-risk incidents.

“To provide protection to our officers that are being deployed to those situations, but more importantly, to provide emergency care to people that we are engaged with during those critical incidents,” said Insp. Robert Norman, of the Greater Sudbury Police Service.

The school said the simulation is also designed to make tangible contributions to the ongoing improvement of College Boreal’s emergency response procedures.