An EMS Reaction to the Virginia Tech Massacre

• Click Here for Slideshow of Images
• Click Here To Discuss in Our Forums
• Click Here for CNN.com Video
• Statement from Virginia Tech President
• Click Here for NBC4.com Slideshow

On Monday morning I checked the news headlines online -- as I do every morning. The first headline to catch my eye was "One Dead, More Than Twenty Injured at Virginia Tech University." Another school shooting -- I went back to work. A few hours later I drifted back to the headlines and read, "VTU Officials Fear More Than 30 Killed." The headline punched the breath out of my lungs.

Like many of you I have spent the last few days checking the news for updates as I try to understand what led a single student to randomly end the lives of his classmates and teachers. How can a person become so unhinged from reality to take such evil actions?

I also confess a professional interest in how EMS operations at VTU were conducted. I studied each image and video for ambulance logos and triage tags. I looked past the talking reporter trying to see a treatment area or landing zone. In one image it looked like some ambulances were caught in the wave of students running out of the classroom building. In another photo a row of ambulances were neatly staged on a side street -- as if preparing for a parade across the drill field.

I also scanned the news articles for key words like mass casualty supply trailer and disaster drill. I followed a story line about patients being distributed to many regional hospitals. Many of the article quotes were from student members of the Virginia Tech Rescue Squad -- a student run EMS organization that provides ALS response to the VTU campus and community.

Take a moment to visit the Virginia Tech Rescue Squad website. VTRS is the second oldest collegiate rescue squad in the country. In addition to being full-time students, VTRS members are required to be on-call one night shift per week and take a certain amount of calls during winter, spring, and summer breaks.

I read that VTRS members completed a mass casualty training program and drill several months before yesterday's tragedy. Very few of us will experience a MCI of this magnitude and I would not wish the experience on anyone, especially a group of young people at the dawn of their medical careers. But now that they have had this experience I am eager to hear from members of VTRS. In a real MCI, what worked and what didn't? Did you have time to give patients triage tags? Did the triage tags help? Were you able to sort patients into treatment areas for on-scene assessment and treatment or were they whisked away to nearby hospitals? What was the timeline for EMS operations? Was there incident command and did it make a difference? How are you doing?

Finally, to the members of VTRS, thank you for accepting an amazing responsibility to care for your classmates and community. The days and weeks ahead will be filled with mourning. But they will also be filled with critique, analysis, and second-guessing. Be proud of the services you provided on Monday, be confident that you made the right decisions with the training and information you had, and take care of yourselves and one another.

Greg Friese, MS, NREMT-P is president of Emergency Preparedness Systems LLC. Greg is a paramedic, author, conference speaker, and lead instructor for Wilderness Medical Associates®. Contact him at gfriese@eps411.com.