Evacuate Evade Defend; A Lifesaving Strategy for Active Shooter Events and Beyond:
Emergency situations are more than just natural disasters. In today’s world, we also need to be prepared for other emergencies, including active shooter situations. This training program provides proven lifesaving strategies for such events. The entire program is broken into three stages, but not all are necessary to develop these lifesaving strategies.
- Phase 1 – A powerful, intense, and well-accepted 2-hour presentation that leads one to understand the history of active shootings, the citizen’s role in threat assessment and reporting, how the body responds under extreme stress, and proven successful actions to keep individuals alive in an active shooting. This presentation is provided by Deputy Chief AJ DeAndrea, Arvada Police Department, Ret., who, over his career responded to three active shooting incidents, and his daughter, Madalena DeAndrea, who is an active shooter incident survivor. (2-2.5 Hours)
- Phase 2 – Upon request, we will respond to the workplace to walk through the steps of Evacuate Evade Defend and help create a personal lifesaving strategy specifically for one’s place of business. We help develop and boost emergency plans and give options. In this phase, we talk about first aid and the best places to barricade and evacuate from. This phase gives employees and individuals confidence and guidance with one-on-one attention.
- Phase 3 – Upon request, we hold a drill at one’s place of business. Our drills have been successfully completed without any complications at numerous facilities for as many as 200 employees. This drill is designed to create the neuro pathways on how to respond to an active shooter in a limited stressful situation. It allows employees to put their life-saving strategies into place in a safe and familiar environment. We provide a Safety Briefing prior to the drill to inform staff of the process, introduce the noise stimuli (which are noise-making instruments and DO NOT resemble a firearm), calm any nerves, and allow for any questions. There are several evaluators placed throughout the facility to observe and take notes of employee actions. After the drill is complete, the evaluators debrief with employees in small groups about what they observed, provide feedback, and answer any questions.
- This program has received extreme positive feedback. Employees feel empowered and confident to handle an emergency like this if it were to arise. It is interactive and we are available to answer questions and put employees at ease. At the completion of any of the phases, the individual will have a plan and if Phases 2 and 3 are completed at the workplace, every employee will have a plan to work together and function as a team if a situation were to arise.
