MUSC safety team earns praise for realistic active shooter drill

The day started just like any other. 

Patients were arriving for appointments with their providers at MUSC Health’s Keith Summey Medical Pavilion in North Charleston. Still others were waiting with family members in the second-floor atrium. 

In a first-floor operating room, a surgical team was repairing an umbilical hernia on a 56-year-old man while charge nurses Julia Eastman and Caroline Robertson assisted.

Suddenly…Pow! Pow! Pow! Gunshots rang out on the first floor. A man was down and crying out for help. He had been shot multiple times. 

MUSC’s ninth annual active shooter drill was underway.

 

Coordinated by MUSC Health’s Ambulatory Emergency Management and MUSC’s Department of Public Safety, the drill included MUSC Health care team participants, the North Charleston Police Department, the North Charleston Fire Department and actors playing the role of shooter and victims – 120 participants in all.

As the “shooter,” using a Simunition firearm filled with blanks, made his way upstairs, MUSC Public Safety Lt. Bryan Wood and Lt. Joe Niemic of the North Charleston Police Department trailed behind, occasionally coaching the “victims” to scream and play their roles to the hilt.

“Remember, you’re not dead,” Niemic shouted. “You’re not dead until you’re dead!” His words urged everyone to live to see another day and use a survivor’s mindset. 

That meant staying quiet, piling furniture against doors in labs, exam rooms and offices to create a barricade and moving to high or low spaces, throwing objects to disrupt the shooter and looking for the first opportunity to escape the building. 

Outside of closed doors, participants, as instructed, had slid a sheet of paper underneath the door to designate that they were barricaded. 

The area was eerily quiet except for the shooter’s threats and mocking insults as he moved through hallways, firing at anyone in his sight: patients in the atrium, a staff member as she stood in a doorway. 

Within eight minutes, North Charleston police had neutralized the shooter. Five people had been “wounded” in the mayhem. Then, following protocol, guns drawn, the S.W.A.T team moved from floor to floor to make certain that the shooter had acted alone. 

As soon as the scene was deemed safe, the Fire Department’s rescue task force entered the building, searching for wounded and creating an obstacle-free space, officially known as a yellow corridor, to move victims out.

Simultaneously, police went from room to room, identifying themselves, telling staff it was safe to open their doors and to evacuate the building.

Outside the OR door, police shouted repeatedly, “North Charleston police! Open up!” No response. It was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. And finally, “Are you safe?” The surgical team replied they were safe but could not open the door or admit anyone until they had completed the surgery. 

A few minutes later, they opened the doors and announced that the surgery had been completed successfully. The “patient” was rolled out to be transported to another facility, and the staff evacuated. 

Wood described the surgery-in-progress scenario as a “new, first-of-its-kind wrinkle” added to the drill. “None of us knew what would happen, what decision the surgical team would make, and how the police would react,” he said. “We wanted them to figure it out. I don’t know of any drill in the country that has included a staged scenario involving a surgery in progress. It forces a team to confront ethical decisions that people don’t want to talk about.”  

 

Then he nodded his head slightly and said, “It went just like it should have.”

Later, in the parking lot, participants gathered for a hot wash, or debrief, to assess the drill’s success. Wood said MUSC, North Charleston police and the fire department recognized shots, reacted, and responded appropriately. 

Erik Modrzynski, MUSC Health’s system director of Ambulatory Environmental Health and Safety and Emergency Management, said the purpose of every drill is to evaluate whether their education is working. “We teach awareness of where the exits are — the doors, the stairwell. It’s a life skill. You can definitely tell which care teams have been through our active threat prevention and response training and which have not.”

Collaboration with local law enforcement agencies is another huge piece of the drill, he said. “Bryan and I meet with police and fire department officials many times to ensure that the drill will go off without any issues and that multiple safety checks and safety officers are in place before, during, and after the event. Safety is always our priority. Additionally, this drill allows local law enforcement to be familiar with our clinics and to see in real time how citizens would react. It’s a win-win.”  

Concerns for the safety of patients, colleagues and themselves motivated MUSC employees to sign up for the drill. April Ata, an administrator in Employee Health Services, and Denise Middleton, an nurse at Summey, were participating in the drill for the first time. 

“I am the first person visitors see when they come into our office, and I want to make sure that I know what to do and how to protect myself and my coworkers,” Ata said. 

Middleton agreed. “You always think what you would do in a situation like this. I want to hear from the first responders and get guidance on the best safety practices.” 

Zoe Peshel, ambulatory services manager for pediatric specialty clinics and after hours clinics, said she wanted to learn how to protect her patients and their parents and to know how to react if she found herself in an active shooter situation. 

Peshel, who was at the nurses’ station checking in patients when the drill began, said she definitely benefitted from participating. “Once we could hear the shooting starting, even though my brain told me it was a drill and not real, my body went, ‘let’s go.’ We called a prearranged number specially set up for the drill. Knowing what I needed to say, ‘active shooter,’ and then the address will stick with me forever.” 

Peshel said she feels more prepared and praised MUSC’s safety team and the participating entities. “Everyone, the S.W.A.T. team, the police and fire, did such an amazing job. I am really proud of MUSC’s drive to make us safe.” 

As he surveyed the parking lot and listened to comments, Modrzynski said, “This is the most realistic drill we can have. The only thing I care about is that everyone lives to see tomorrow.”