Lexington, SC (WLTX)- A first of its kind training in Lexington County prepared emergency officials for an active shooter situation.
Lexington law enforcement, fire service, school administrators and EMS all got together at Pelion Elementary School and went through a couple scenarios.
For the second and final day Dana Catoe with the Lexington County Sheriff's Department was a part of the Active Shooter Training. "Coming together as an agency, it went a lot smoother this morning that I thought it would" said Catoe.
There was 145 personnel there.
"We simulated injuries from very minor to very major. We simulated hostage situations. We had different teams coming from different areas securing different places" said Catoe. "Taking out the threat and once it was secure instead of waiting for the whole building to be secured, we secured parts of it so that we could take the EMS teams in, pull the injured out by severity first and once they could walk get them out get them on to the buses that EMS has here or transport them to the hospital."
Clearing buildings, clearing rooms and overall tactics were also a part of their day. Catoe says it's important to stay on top of the training because they're the ones on the front-lines.
"Unlike the ones we did in the past today we're actually incorporating fire, EMS along with law enforcement and once we go in and address the threat we escort fire and EMS into practice helping our students and faculty in the event that this really happens" said Lexington county Sheriff Jay Koon. "It's great just an example of teamwork we're doing throughout the county and region, everybody has to work together that's what it's all about. Helping our citizens and helping our students so it just shows a great collaboration of everybody coming together to do the mission."
Although this was the first of its kind for Lexington County, Richland and Sumter counties have been doing similar training sessions for quite some time now.
