Riley Avenue School Drill [11-15-14]
On the morning of Saturday, November 15th, 2014 an active shooter drill was held at Riley Avenue School in Calverton – a school that normally educates up to six hundred students in grades kindergarten through fourth grade. The drill was to originally be held at Riverhead High School but the location was changed due to ongoing construction at the high school. The drill began with a faculty member activating a panic button inside the school and then the building being placed on lockdown. Within minutes Riverhead Police were on scene and entering the school in tactical gear. As police made their way into the school in an attempt to locate the person playing the role of the subject volunteers assuming the role of faculty and students exited the school with hands up. Aside from those taking the role of faculty, students, and shooter were those who were assigned the task of acting as an injured [or in one instance, a fatally wounded] school shooting victim. The one dozen people who acted as victims were each given assignments ahead of time and it was up to medical personnel to enter the school and figure out what the injuries were.
These medical personnel arrived on scene just after Riverhead Police and lined the front of the school with ambulances from various departments. The members staffing these ambulances not only had to locate victims within the school but due to the time constraints and the circumstances had to remove them without any equipment. The “injured” were then transported to one of a few different locations in the area that would have been the equivalent of driving to an area hospital. The drill, which was over one year in the making, was concluded with a critique inside the school cafeteria. Various departments and agencies were on hand for this event including Suffolk County Fire Rescue and Emergency Services, Suffolk EMS and Riverhead Police as well as ambulances from Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps, Yaphank, Flanders-Northampton, Ridge, Mattituck, Westhampton, East Moriches, and Cutchogue among others.
Read MoreThese medical personnel arrived on scene just after Riverhead Police and lined the front of the school with ambulances from various departments. The members staffing these ambulances not only had to locate victims within the school but due to the time constraints and the circumstances had to remove them without any equipment. The “injured” were then transported to one of a few different locations in the area that would have been the equivalent of driving to an area hospital. The drill, which was over one year in the making, was concluded with a critique inside the school cafeteria. Various departments and agencies were on hand for this event including Suffolk County Fire Rescue and Emergency Services, Suffolk EMS and Riverhead Police as well as ambulances from Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps, Yaphank, Flanders-Northampton, Ridge, Mattituck, Westhampton, East Moriches, and Cutchogue among others.
