Community Corner

Dearborn Police Take Over Oakwood Hospital for Active Shooter Drills

Officers partnered with Oakwood Hospital staff on Wednesday to train for real-life emergency scenarios on the hospital campus.

Preparation comes in many different forms for police and other emergency personnel, and on Wednesday that meant running through an active shooter scenario at Oakwood Hospital & Medical Center in Dearborn.

Staff at the hospital, along with members of the Dearborn Police Department’s Critical Incident and Community Support Unit teamed up for the drill along with 30 community volunteers.

Under the planned drill scenario, police responders and members of Oakwood’s security team worked together to find and apprehend an armed suspect on the hospital campus, while Oakwood physicians and support staff tended to other victims and kept patients safe.

It was the first time the two organizations worked together on such an exercise, according to Morris Cotton, director of security for Oakwood Healthcare.

“We have always had a very strong, positive relationship with the Dearborn Police Department,” said Cotton, a former police chief. “We recognize the importance of working together to promote safety both at the hospital and in the community as a whole and we want to be prepared for any type of emergency.

"I always say those who fail to plan, plan to fail."

Cristy Rankin, emergency management liaison with Oakwood Healthcare, said the drill was designed to enhance the hospital's "Code Silver" active shooter policy staff have been training on for the past year.

"We wanted to make this as close to a ‘real life’ scenario as we could,” she said. “These are skills and policies that we hope we never have to use, but it’s important to be prepared if something like this occurs. We are committed to preparing ourselves for all types of disasters. The safety of our patients, staff and the community is very important to us.”

About 20 officers took part in two separate drills on Wednesday.

Lt. William Leavens, commander of the Dearborn SWAT team, said other than knowing that there was a shooter on the hospital campus, officers were not informed of any other information and had to rely on actors to guide their actions.

"This exercise gave us an outstanding training opportunity," Leavens said. "The hospital layout is not something we've been able to utilize in the past. Schools, malls and other buildings are not like what we experienced here today."

Casey Baker, a member of the Dearborn Police Department Explorer Program, said he enjoyed seeing firsthand how officers respond under stress.

"Right when I made the 911 call, they were prepared," he said. "SWAT took control easily and moved everyone to safety."

Dearborn Police Explorer Anthony Bard said the scenario felt very real.

"It was scary," he said. "I played a patient with a broken leg and I couldn't walk. Two police officers came into my room with their guns drawn and escorted me out.

"It's really important that the police know what to do when something like this actually happens."

Hospital staff acknowledged that there were some hiccups in the training. Chiefly, the call for "code silver" from the hospital's overhead paging system alerting employees of a shooter was not heard in several departments. In addition, officers said upon entering the hospital, all of their radios and cell phones could not be used to communicate to dispatchers outside of the building. To remedy the situation, they relied on hospital security guards to lead them through the facility.

"It was like once our men entered the building, they were in a black hole," Leavens said.

Another issue involved the number of outside audience observers interfering with the training scenario, which caused moderate confusion and delayed apprehension of the shooter.

"Once the first group of officers entered the building, the actors got quiet, so the officers took more time locating the shooter. In a real-life situation, we would surf the sound wave of panic right to our guy," Leavens said.

The results from the training, however, provide hospital staff and officers with a blueprint on areas for improvement.

"The more exposure we can get to this type of training the better," Leavens said.

In addition to the active shooter training, Cotton said Oakwood Healthcare regularly participates in regional crisis drills in order to improvement emergency responses to all local and regional health threats.

“We’re fortunate to have such a strong relationship with our host communities,” said Cotton. “It’s by working together on drills like that that we can best serve our neighborhoods and keep people safe.”


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