Active shooter drill at Lorain County Public Health helps train first responders, staff for emergency

The sounds of simulated gunfire, followed by shouts and cries for help from actors playing victims of a mass shooting echoed through the halls of Lorain County Public Health on Murray Ridge Road in Elyria during an emergency drill Friday morning. More than 100 first responders, public health employees and officials from multiple agencies took part in the mass casualty drill, a training exercise designed to test LCPH's Building Emergency Action Plan, or BEAP. It was also an opportunity for police officers and emergency first responders to train for what they would do on a bad day that no one in Lorain County wants to see. An actor playing the shooter dressed all in black and holding a blue simulated munition handgun that fired blank cartridges — sounding a little louder than a toy cap gun when it went off — entered the building shortly before 10 a.m. Two people played shooting victims just outside the front entrance, with one playing dead for more than 30 minutes. The shooter passed other victims covered in fake blood who were already in their places on the floor. Just after the first shots went off, an LCPH employee called out a code word alerting the rest of the building to an emergency. That sent some LCPH employees scrambling to the exits while others sheltered in place behind locked doors. The actors playing victims left behind in the building loudly begged responding police officers, firefighters and paramedics first to end the threat, then treat their wounds. A Lorain County sheriff's deputy entered the building with his own simulated firearm drawn within 10 minutes of the first shots. He was followed shortly after by multiple uniformed Elyria police officers who ascended the building's front stairs, their simulated firearms drawn. Organizers in vests kept track of the progress of the drill and the action. Cries of "Help, I'm bleeding" and "He shot me" started up again from the simulated victims once the exercise resumed. Approximately 15 minutes into the drill, a call went out over the radio: "Suspect down." The building was soon flooded with EMS workers, including paramedics in ballistic helmets and vests escorted inside by armed police officers, while firetrucks, multiple ambulances and other emergency vehicles staged in the parking lot of LCPH and the sheriff's office next door. Elyria, Sheffield, Avon, Grafton, Eaton Township and LifeCare personnel worked in concert to triage, treat, and move the wounded to ambulances as police officers completed their search of the building, escorting innocent bystanders out with their hands up after finding them holed up in locked rooms. Shortly after the call of "suspect down," a Lorain County deputy sheriff began treating two living "victims" seated on the floor at the top of a staircase. "Please stop that man, he shot us," a male actor portraying a victim pleaded with the deputy, after spending more than 20 minutes waiting for help, suffering from a pretend gunshot wound to the shoulder. "We got him," the deputy replied. "Thank you," the actor said. Lorain County Health Commissioner Mark Adams said the exercise had been planned for nine months. He said his agency's building was completed in 2019, and it made sense to use it for the drill so first responders from Elyria, the sheriff's office and other surrounding agencies could get familiar with its layout and his staff with emergency response plans. Adams said after hearing the first "gunshots" and the buildingwide emergency code word to go out, he spent part of the exercise "under my desk for a while" until he was rescued. "There were things that right away were identified for the next time we ever do this training or for the reality is, A, I would need to make sure I have my radio," Adams said. "I forgot my radio when I was evacuated so I had to keep running back and forth for accountability purposes." For his staff, they were able to learn more about their own situational awareness, such as if they should run or hide, he said. Practicing emergency responses during drills like the one held Friday helps people get better at responding to real emergencies, Adams said. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com.