How to stay safe: Plan ahead, trust gut,
Friday’s deadly shooting at Sante Fe High School in Galveston County that killed 10 people follows a number of other deadly high school shootings that have happened this year, including one in February in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17. The mass shooting led to a wave of protests and school walk-outs to demand stricter gun laws and prompted law enforcement agencies to hold active shooter training sessions to prepare people for the worst. Pete Blair, executive director of the ALERRT Center in San Marcos, which trains first responders in active shooter scenarios, said mass-casualty situations are rare but he offered these tips for anyone confronted with an active shooter:
Plan ahead
Look around the places where you spend most of your day, like your home or office. Notice where the exits, the phones and the elevators are and plan what you would do if an unexpected incident unfolded.
“When you are under high stress, your higher order cognitive functions, your thinking human brain shuts down, you are left with your default fight or flight,” Blair said. “We recommend sitting a few moments before the crisis to think about what you would actually do.”
Trust your gut
Pay attention to your internal instincts. When you get a strange feeling in the pit of your stomach, don’t ignore it. If you hear something that sounds like gunfire, assume it’s gunfire.
“In your brain you have millennia of survival machinery to keep you alive. We know those things work pretty well because we are alive as a species,” Blair said. “When you get that gut feeling, often it is happening at a subconscious level. If you spend a lot of time trying to figure it out, you’re wasting time. By the time you get around to where your conscious brain catches up, it might be too late.”
Assess the situation
Evaluate what is happening. If you hear a fire alarm going off, don’t assume automatically it’s a fire. Assess the situation. In many active shooter scenarios, fire alarms have gone off because of the reverberations of gunfire, Blair said. It’s not always smart to run out of the building.
“See if it makes sense,” he said.
Avoid, deny, defend (even if you’re armed)
If you can avoid the attacker, do so. If not, the next best option is to deny them access to your location by closing or locking doors. The last resort is to defend yourself in any way possible.
“You can pull hair, hit them in the groin, use blunt objects to hit them with,” Blair said. “If you are fighting fairly, you are doing it wrong. It’s not about who is the toughest kid on the playground. It’s about who goes home alive.”
If armed, Blair still recommends avoiding and denying access. He urged those with weapons to remember: Nothing differentiates you from the enemy.
“You may very well get shot,” he said.
Don’t hide or play dead
These are two common misconceptions people have about what to do in a dangerous shooter situation, Blair said. Unfortunately, playing dead doesn’t usually work.
“They shoot the people who are down to make sure they are dead,” Blair said. “We have many cases of people playing dead that are shot.”
And while hiding is good, because you don’t want to be seen by your attacker, Blair said it’s never good to trap yourself in a situation you can’t get out of.
“Ducking under desks and that sort of thing is good because you aren’t seen but bad because you are boxed into a place where you have no options. You always want to have options,” he said.