Published: August 13, 2008 11:59 pm         

Hostage-taking situation exercise tests the mettle, reaction times of law enforcement, fire and rescue

COVINGTON — Pop! Pop!

“Firemen down! Firemen down! Shooter in the building!”

Firefighters and law enforcement officers from Garfield County Sheriff’s Office, Marshall, Fairmont, Covington, Douglas and Pioneer-Skeleton Creek were tested, ob-served and evaluated Wednesday night with a practice hostage situation at Covington-Douglas Public Schools. Evaluators also were from Waukomis, Enid and Garber.

Mike Honigsberg, director of Enid and Garfield County Emergency Management, said this is not the first practice in the area.

“We are trying to go around to all the towns and do this. We do this because, No. 1, it is good practice and No. 2, it could actually happen,” he said.

Responding departments knew an exercise was scheduled but were not informed of the situation.

“The more realistic you make it the better. If it actually happens, they can say we did this right or we made this mistake last time,” Honigsberg said.

In the exercise, two men entered the school gym and pool area and shot several people. Volunteer students from Covington First Baptist Church youth group played the victims of the situation. They were instructed as to their injuries, if they were dead or if they were in shock. They yelled and called for help.

The gunmen also shot two firefighters responding to the original call for a fire alarm. The rest of the responding firefighters pulled back and stayed behind their trucks out of the line of fire. Then, they set up an incident command post and put out a call for law enforcement officers. The first law enforcement officers set the perimeter and fed information to tactical team members until they arrived on scene.

Lt. Shon Jackson, of Garfield County Sheriff’s Office, was a member of the tactical team unit.

“We were advised of an active shooter. We were able to deploy our tactical team unit. We encountered two active shooters, both of which we neutralized,” said Jackson.

After the shooters were dealt with, firefighters entered the building to help the wounded.

Austin Cushman, a volunteer victim, was shot in the leg in the lobby of the gym.

“It was intense and shocking. They helped me up and I put my arms around the firefighters, and they helped me out like that,” he said.

Clifton Jones, another volunteer victim, was in a locker.

“It took them a while to find me. I kept yelling, ‘Help, help!’ and they kept walking by me. It was kind of funny. Then one looked down. He wasn’t sure and shined his light at me,” Jones said.

Jonathan Cooper, another victim, was shot in his left arm and left leg.

“It was pretty numbing. It was like ‘The 99’ all over again. When they fired the gun, I jumped a couple times. It was pretty realistic,” said Cooper. “The 99” is a walk-through reality theater depicting the leading causes of death for American teenagers. It recently was in Enid.

Coltan Frank, volunteer victim, was shot in the chest.

“I was a little nervous. It was scary because of the gunshots,” he said.

Terry Young, of Wau-komis Fire Department, portrayed one of the shooters during the exercise.

“I didn’t make it too long. I think I got one, but they took me out pretty quick,” he said.

Although the simulation was as real as possible, with blanks in the guns and real people as victims, it wasn’t perfect.

“They try to make it as real as possible, but it still lacks some of the smells and sounds and stuff, but I think they did very good,” Jackson said.

The chances of a situation like this happening in this area is small, according to Honigsberg, but practice is good.

“The chances of it happening here are about nil, but it could because people don’t think we are ready. You have to practice, practice, practice,” he said.