Police Chief Birbeck conducts active shooter drill for hospital staff

Staff members at Olney Hamilton Hospital paid rapt attention to an hourlong presentation by Police Chief Dan Birbeck about how to survive an armed attack at their facility, just days after mass shootings at an elementary school in Uvalde and a Tulsa hospital.

The June 6 presentation at the Hospital Education Center began with a surveillance video of the 1999 Columbine High School shootings in Colorado, in which two gunmen killed 12 students and a teacher, to illustrate how easily people can become disoriented during a crisis and the importance of active shooter drills.

“I want you to pay attention to the video and see if you can pick out a problem that’s occurring with the response to the shooter,” Chief Birbeck told attendees. “Also listen to the 9-1-1 call and see if you can pick out the problem the dispatcher is having getting a certain piece of information.”

The tape showed students and teachers running in circles around tables and bookshelves, often doubling back the way they entered, trying to escape the shooting. Chief Birbeck said that some dropped to the floor or hid beneath tables, only to be shot - a common mistake caused by the natural flight response.

“They don’t have a plan. They have no training. They don’t know what they’re doing,” Birbeck said. “You can have a plan all day long that sits in a pretty book up on a shelf but unless you get it out and train on it, do you think you’re going to be prepared to respond? Absolutely not. So what we are going to do is going to give you some training and a plan so you’re prepared to confront an active shooter no matter where you’re at.”

He then reviewed a technique called OODA Loop - “Observe- Orient- Decide- Act” - developed by a military intelligence officer to overcome battlefield paralysis.

The 9-1-1 caller failed to identify where the shooting was happening, the number of assailants, what they looked like and how they were armed – all crucial information, Chief Birbeck said.

“Where is the shooter? You have this building, you have the hospital, you have the administration building, you’ve got the EMS building, you’ve got the clinic. You can’t just say the hospital - you have to say a location,” he said.

Chief Birbeck also screened footage from the May 14 mass shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, to show how quickly mass shootings unfold and how to rapidly escape or create safe spaces through barricades and other means.

Hamilton Hospital has been conducting these presentations for several months – before the shootings in Tulsa and Uvalde – and evaluating hospital security with Chief Birbeck, who headed hospital security at Parkland Hospital in Dallas before he came to Olney, said hospital board Chairman Dale Lovett, who attended the lunchtime presentation along with about 30 hospital staff.

“He’s going to do a lot more so we can get all our key staff in here,” Lovett said. “There is no such thing as being fully prepared but we’re getting started.”

Chief Birbeck has conducted active shooter drills for the Olney Independent School District and several businesses in town. He said that groups who would like to see the presentation should call the police station and book a time.