Active shooter seminar teaches how to respond to threat of violence

A 30-year law enforcement veteran and a physician certified by an international school of tactical medicine have teamed up to offer “active shooter” seminars for businesses, industries and other organizations.

The purpose is twofold: to help companies create a prevention and response plan if someone with a gun enters the workplace and to teach people how to control hemorrhagic bleeding to save the life of a victim with a gunshot wound until he or she receives medical care.

“We will teach you what to do in the three to five minutes it takes for law enforcement to arrive,” said Lt. Donald “Chip” Holland, who has been in law enforcement for three decades and is a former operational commander of a tactical unit.

“We’ve had a lot of requests for the active shooter seminar,” said Dr. Melanie Hoppers, chief medical officer at Physicians Quality Care in Jackson. Dr. Hoppers has received extensive on-site training at the International School of Tactical Medicine in Sacramento, Calif. Students at the Sacramento school have included members of the FBI, DEA, ATF and hundreds of other organizations.

The FBI defines an active shooter as an individual who is actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people with firearms in a populated area. Since 2000 when the FBI first started keeping records on active shooter incidents, the number has increased each year. The “active” aspect implies that both law enforcement and citizens have the potential to affect the outcome of the event, said Lt. Holland.

Active shooter incidents do not include gang- or drug-related incidents, the accidental discharge of a firearm or family-related shootings.

Since gunshot wounds are likely to cause bleeding, there’s a renewed push in teaching people how to control the bleeding until the victim gets medical help, said Dr. Hoppers. “It’s important in saving lives. For example, all of the people who got makeshift tourniquets from bystanders at the Boston Marathon bombing survived.”

According to the FBI, the United States had an average of 6.4 incidents per year between 2000 and 2006; the rate increased to 16.4 incidents per year from 2007-2013. Both 2014 and 2015 had 20 incidents, and incidents in 2016 included the killing of 49 people and wounding 50 people in an Orlando nightclub. The year 2017 saw the killing of 58 people and wounding more than 575 people at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas.

For more information about scheduling an active shooter seminar, contact Jennifer Carmack, Physicians Quality Care Director of Occupational Medicine, at jennifer@physiciansqualitycare.com or 731.984.8400.