“ So, we’ re setting up out in the‘ warm zone’ or‘ cold zone’, wherever we’ ve decided to set-up at. We’ re setting up our own internal command, amongst ourselves, to get a game plan ready to go in,” he said.
Hart told them that EMS’ s role during an active shooter incident was to provide life-saving care in the“ warm” and“ cold” zones, coordinate with law enforcement for scene safety, rapid triage and treatment of casualties and transport patients from casualty collection points to treatment facilities.
He said the scene sometimes may not be safe but, as first responders, they were still expected to go into that unsafe zone. He said the way the new standard lays it out for EMS is that they are expected to enter an area as long as there are officers that are addressing the threat and it is not actually in that same area.
He said what the officers needed to know was that EMS knew it was unsafe and the threat was still active.
“ We’ re willing, we’ re trained to come in here and start triaging. We might not start moving [ patients ] yet but we’ re willing to come in here and start triaging and treat those critically ill that we can, as long as you’ re there to protect,” Hart added.
He said that the moving of patients was going to be the fire department’ s responsibility and they would use them as much as possible to move patients. He said they would pick up the victims and move them outside to the casualty staging area.
“ We’ re going to do whatever we can to get those patients out,” he said on evacuating patients from a“ hot zone.”“ We’ re gonna move them however we have to move them.”
He told the officers that they could just, initially, drag the victims out by a hand or foot or whatever was necessary to get them to a safer area and out of danger.
“ We’ re gonna rely on law enforcement to keep us safe or keep the perimeter safe, as well,” Hart said.
He added that when there was a big event, everybody in the community shows up and they start asking EMS questions and crowding them when they are working on patients in the staging area outside.
“ So, communications. Again, communications is one of the biggest downfalls we have in public safety. We’ ve talked about it 100 times,” said Hart.
He said they needed to use plain language and no 10-codes. He said 10-4 was the only one they should use because that was the only universal 10 code that everybody knew. He also said, reiterating what Warburg said, that no one needed to be on the radio except for the incident command officers.
“ During the recent four-day training exercise, we had the opportunity to network with agencies, fostering mutual understanding among public safety officers. This exercise not only enhanced our knowledge but also strengthened friendships, leading to increased trust among first responders,” Hart told me via email at the end of the week.“ By identifying our strengths and weaknesses, we were able to address them promptly, ultimately improving our skills and preparedness.”
> Putting it into practice
In closing, Moore said they would practice and identify the problems. He also asked the class if they could think of any other kind of training that they could do jointly. The class seemed to agree that it would be beneficial to do all-agency training again in the future.
“ The schools system has been awesome about letting us do this,” he said about using the school for the training.
“ We are grateful for our partnership with the Moultrie Police Department and the Colquitt County Sheriff’ s Office in maintaining safe and secure schools. We appreciate their efforts to stay trained and prepared should there be a need for rapid response in an emergency, and are happy to provide training space for such preparation,” stated the Colquitt County School District in reference to the training taking place at Stringfellow Elementary School.
After a day of classwork, an active shooter scenario was mounted the next day. I went in as an observer to the process. The Sheriff’ s Office went all out with a smoke machine and turning on the school’ s fire alarm, which drilled into your head during the entire exercise. They really wanted to make the experience as real as possible for the agencies.
There were 15 community volunteers, including members of Moultrie Federated Guild, that acted as victims of the“ active shooter” during the exercise. Some of them were made-up with fake gun-shot wounds. The volunteers were assigned different roles during the scenario.
46 MoultrieScene AUGUST 2025