Monday, March 13, 2000
Rescuers learned lesson in Colorado
BY SUSAN VELA
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON — As operations chief of the Littleton, Colo., Fire Department, Chuck Burdick witnessed the mayhem of the Columbine High School shootings and knows other communities could learn from his experience.
That's why he urges Greater Cincinnati police, firefighters, emergency managers and medical technicians to start thinking about how they can cooperate and best respond to such a tragedy.
These days, he said, another school shooting seems inevitable and there's no telling where the next will happen.
“It's better to plan ahead. The No. 1 problem is communication,” he said Sunday at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center. Mr. Burdick was the keynote speaker on the final day of the three-day Tri-State EMS Conference.
He told an audience of about 180 that hundreds of law enforcers, SWAT team members, firefighters and emergency medical technicians responded to the April 20 high school shootings. Columbine students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students, a teacher and themselves.
Mr. Burdick recalled that the first report came in at 11:19 a.m. Shots had been fired at Columbine, just west of Littleton in unincorporated Jefferson County, and there had been an explosion on the roof.
Mr. Burdick and other Littleton firefighters arrived to see students streaming outside, clueless about why alarms were going off. They also heard gunshots.
Police, firefighters and emergency medical technicians from other agencies arrived. A command post was set up. SWAT teams set up a perimeter and helped students leave the building. Areas for triage, family reunification and the media also were established.
“We had to assemble all that that day,” Mr. Burdick said. “This school was under siege. Everything was happening. The radio was just nonstop traffic. I can't begin to explain the chaos.”
Critics have questioned the police officers' response, saying they should have more quickly entered the school to seek out the source of the gunfire. But Mr. Burdick maintains the agencies did their best under the circumstances.
He described that day's climactic mood.
“This is a war at this point and you're doing whatever you can to get those kids to safety,” he said.
Still, he thinks responding agencies could have done more to “take care their own.” Police or firefighters who knew students inside the school should have been relieved of duty, he said.
The county dispatcher also could have arranged for someone to handle calls solely from relatives of the police, firefighters and members of other emergency response teams.
People from throughout the nation were seeing live broadcasts of the situation on TV. Relatives wanted to know how their loved ones were doing, he said.
Many in the audience appreciated his advice.
“He was there,” said Jim Butler, assistant chief of the Florence Fire Department and organizer of the con ference. “The big thing is to truly understand that this exists. We are facing these issues and better be prepared.”
He takes comfort in knowing Boone County schools are doing more, such as providing fire departments with school layouts.
Deana Poston, a Hebron Fire Department administrative assistant, has worked 10 years as an emergency medical technician.
She felt more mentally prepared for facing such a tragedy and now understands the need to set up a command post when so many agencies are involved.
She agrees that agencies need to “take care of their own.”
“I can't help anybody unless I'm OK,” she said.
This was the 11th annual Tri-State EMS Conference. Florence Fire/EMS sponsored the event.
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