Police, firefighters and trauma center nurses offered lessons of survival Monday at an active shooter situation preparedness demonstration hosted by the city of Chula Vista.
“Well I think this day and age with different things going on around the country it’s very important that people have a better awareness of their surroundings,” Chula Vista Police Department Detective Zak Szymczak said.
Presentation topics included how to deal with an active shooter, how paramedics respond to active shooter situations and how to properly care for people injured in an active shooter event.
“The first thing you want to be thinking about doing if something happens, is run. Get away, find an exit, and just keep running as far as you can. If you can’t get out right away, we want you to hide. Find something you can hide behind, something solid, something with cover that can protect you in case there are bullets. And then, last resort, if you have to, you have to be prepared to fight,” Szymczak said.
UC San Diego Health Trauma Center staff brought manakins and fake limbs along to show how to properly stop traumatic bleeding, and dress bullet wounds and other injuries.
“My wife and I came out tonight because considering the current environment, all these mass shootings all over, not just the country but the world, we thought it was important for us to be able to protect ourselves,” event attendee Lew Witherspoon said.
The city said t’s important to teach community members active shooter safety because incidents are usually over after 10 to 15 minutes, sometimes before police and medics get to the scene.
Event organizers plan on conducting more safety presentations in the future for the Chula Vista community.