GRIC OEM hosts training for First Responders
Emma Hughes
Gila River Indian News
Over 50 public safety personnel from the Gila River Indian Community, neighboring tribes, and cities took part in a three-day course that provides first responders with the experience and confidence to manage an Active Shooter Event held at the Gila River Resorts & Casinos - San Tan Mountain on Feb. 6-8.
C3 Pathways provides the comprehensive course as part of the National Center for Integrated Emergency Response (NCIER), supported and operated by C3. NCIER provides research, modeling, best practices, policy guidance, governance, education, and training to first responder agencies, universities, homeland security, and governmental organizations.
The overall goal is to decrease the time to neutralize a threat and promptly get aid to someone who may be injured or at risk. With eleven hands-on scenario exercises, participants gain crucial knowledge using the NIMSPro 3D simulation systems, which may look like a video game that allows first responders to engage and react to life-like situations without facing any real danger or harm.
The course also provides management experience and training to integrate and manage multi-discipline responses to a full range of active shooter and hostile event threats, including Complex Coordinated Attack (CCA).
“It was a pleasure for us to be in the Gila River Indian Community and work with the Office of Emergency Management and all the responders,” said Joe Ferreira, training director for C3 Pathways. “The important part is integrated emergency response to active threat or active shooter events; and the key word there, integration, that means fire, law enforcement, EMS, communications, and emergency management all working together with one common goal: to do it effectively and efficiently as possible because the time is of the essence.”
Coordinated by the Community’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM), the course was offered to the Gila River Police Department, Fire, and EMS and welcomed fellow first responders from the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, Ak-Chin Indian Community, Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, Maricopa and Pinal County.
OEM’s Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) Coordinator, Monica Ortiz, said that as part of their PHEP grant, one of the deliverables is to work together as a community to enhance their capabilities in full-scale exercises.
“I think this opened the eyes of a lot of our first responders to say that OEM is there to support them,” Ortiz said.
After discussing some ideas with public safety chiefs last spring, Gila River EMS Deputy Chief Kevin Knight recommended C3 Pathways.
C3 is a critical indecent management responders program in Florida that holds weekly trainings nationwide. Before arriving in the Community, the team of five was providing training courses in Tucson, and next, they will be traveling to California.
“Having these outside departments coming in and making a bigger scenario when we don’t have all these resources, it’s been eye-opening,” said Gila River Fire Department’s Chief Kathy Garcia.
She shared that while typically, Fire and EMS team up for practices or tabletop exercises, having GRPD and OEM join for this full-scale exercise has been valuable. Another benefit has been the 3D simulations, which allowed Garcia to see and manage victims, assume various roles such as an EMS driver and rescue task force team, and even serve as a public information officer.
OEM Director Bruce Harvey stated, “We’re going to have some debriefs with the chiefs to be able to move this forward to see what resources and what other trainings that we want to bring in and move forward.”
