Hart asked them if once the active threat was eliminated who would the incident command be transferred to and the response was EMS.
“ EMS and Fire, depending on how you’ re gonna work that system. You’ re gonna have that transfer of command,” he said.
Hart said a mass casualty incident meant that their resources were overwhelmed and for Colquitt County, they defined that as six patients at once.
“ If we have six patients, that’ s overwhelming our resources. If it is six critical patients, that’ s very overwhelming,” he said.
He said scene size-up coordination was critical and when EMS or Fire get to a scene that’ s one of the first things that they do.
“ We want to know what type of building we’ re at, where is the hazard. We’ re getting all the details,” Hart said.“ For EMS it’ s real important that we know the coordinates north, east, south west.
‘ This is the west end of the building, this is the north end of the building.’ We need to know where that’ s at.”
He said, with EMS, there was a new standard where they were now told in training they may go into the“ hot zone.” He clarified that their definitions of the zones was different than law enforcement definitions.
Hart said the first things they would do, when they got in, was to perform a rapid triage by going through and assessing victims and getting them out when they could.
He said, the Incident Command System with EMS and fire was the incident commander, operations, triage officer and transport officer.
“ With an active threat, Fire becomes EMS, as long as there’ s no fire,” Hart said and added that their main objective was to rescue and triage patients.
Law enforcement officers and EMS evacuate a“ victim” during the all agency active shooter exercise. Photo by Adelia Ladson
AUGUST 2025 MoultrieScene 45