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New Jersey hospital, police train for active shooters

Hospital Safety Insider, October 30, 2014

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There wasn’t really an active shooter at The Valley Hospital’s Robert and Audrey Luckow Pavilion in Paramus, New Jersey on October 19, but the facility trained for the real thing, according to a report in The Record of Bergen County.

In the latest of many active shooter drills taking place at hospitals nationwide, police responded to a report of a gunman who had taken a woman hostage at the local hospital and who was shooting toward patients and their nurses on the third floor.

Security officers practiced telling patients and staff to run and hide, while others locked their doors or drew the curtains around their beds, according to hospital protocols. Officers were able to practice clearing corners and rooms until they found the gunman and his hostage.

According to the report, hospital staff along with dozens of officers from Paramus, Ridgewood, Midland Park, Oradell, Allendale and the Bergen County Police Department practiced the scenarios with about 100 volunteer “victims.” About a year ago, northern New Jersey officers responded to the county’s first ongoing shooting incident at the Garden State Plaza in Paramus. In that incident, a gunman fired randomly at people and later killed himself in the mall.

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