MCH holds annual active shooter drill

ODESSA, Texas (KOSA) - On any normal day, MCH can treat hundreds of patients for any number of illnesses.

However, on November 14th nurses were treating patients involved in a mock shooting here at the hospital.

At the Wadley Stewart Medical Pavilion at MCH, patients were treated in a different scenario than normal hospital procedures.

“So with everything that’s been going on in the country and with the unfortunate popularity of active shooters, we want to make sure that we keep our facility up to date on anything that we have to do to keep ourselves safe and patient safe if this were to ever happen here at the hospital” Amanda Everett, Emergency Mgmt. Coordinator

Patients at the hospital were in a waiting lobby when two gunmen entered the building and shot and killed several individuals while injuring others.

One of the gunmen was apprehended by hospital police and taken into custody and the second barricaded himself in a patient’s room.

It was a great chance for multiple law enforcement agencies to work together if this were to ever happen.

“This was a great opportunity for us to work with OPD and ECISD PD as well. They came in and they were able to run through some of their training as well so this was a large training episode for everybody” said Everett

After every disaster drill the hospital always has a debriefing with management so that they can go through what they’ve seen and what they can learn.

“On this one, we found some of our weaknesses. We noticed that there are some locations in the hospital where we should probably have a little bit more physical security than without the aspect of an actual officer. Maybe mechanically do a couple of things differently” said Everett

This training is done annually by the hospital.

Copyright 2023 KOSA. All rights reserved.