Chattanooga Hospital Holds “Active-Shooter” Drill

CHATTANOOGA, TN (WDEF-TV) – Unfortunately, this is becoming a familiar scenario, and one that can literally happen anywhere.
Coincidentally, CHI Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga was staging an "active shooter" drill on the same day, to be prepared for such a crisis.
It involved police, fire and hospital staff who say it was as realistic as they could make it.

The "active shooter" exercise took place behind closed doors, and included role-playing by hospital staff, along with realistic gunshots.

TOMMY WIGGONTON, MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, DIR. PUBLIC SAFETY "Here at Memorial, we’re trying to get our staff where they need to be ..to take care of the patients the best way we can…because during a situation like that, everyone panics…including us..we’re all human."

And when it was over, there were 19 mock casualties in the 4-to-6 minutes it took for help to arrive.

LT. MARK SMELTZER, CHATTANOOGA POLICE DEPARTMENT "We want to make sure that first of all the scene is safe …we want to make sure that people are protected. If there’s a bad guy in here..we want to get the bad guy and then we want to make sure they can get back to business as usual as soon as possible."

Only parts of the hospital were involved in the drill—there were actually two different events during the day for training purposes. Some of the actors were students from Chattanooga state and their instructors.

MARY MCGILL, CHATTANOOGA STATE INSTRUCTOR "I felt safe because I knew it was a drill, but yes, it was very realistic..and it was very..once you hear the gunshots…it does make your heart race a little big because you start thinking this could really be happening."

TOMMY WIGGONTON "Its a trend across this country today…its a sad trend but its something we all have to prepare for."

The participants met afterwards to critique the drill.

LT. MARK SMELTZER, CHATTANOOGA POLICE DEPARTMENT "There’s a lot of things between the hospital, EMS, fire and police department..I think there’s a great coordination and I think its been a good plan."

Memorial leaders say the "active shooter" drill will be repeated in the future to make sure the staff is trained and know what to do if it every happened.