Class project

Terrorism Incident Management

For starters, this hypothetical situation is indeed very grim. It is day two of an ongoing negotiation between the government and terrorists at the O.co Coliseum in Oakland California. This initiative is made possible by a recent injunction by the US president to allow for direct negotiations with terrorists in cases where hostages are involved (Boyer, 2015). The BC, who are a California based revolutionary terrorist organization have besieged the O.co Coliseum with approximately 40,000 people who were attending the August 18th Oakland Athletics home game and an additional number of innocent bystanders and security personnel. 35,000 of this figure are spectators. The number of casualties is already very high not to mention the number of potential victims. Two-hundred security guards along with fifty police officers who were manning the game and hundreds of game fans are either dead or wounded. The sheer number of terrorists that are involved, i.e. 153, is just stupefying. They are well-armed with high-powered rifles, explosives, automatic weapons, and ample supplies. Speculations are that they have booby-trapped the Coliseum’s interior with explosives. Their goal, which is to compel the government to subdivide the county of California into three distinct states is equally mind-boggling. They seek to contain as many people as possible within the Coliseum. Ten terrorists are reportedly dead. They were killed in a crossfire with the police.

I oversee the operations of all the assets belonging to the Fire Department and the Emergency Response Services (EMS), which involves coordination with the clinics, hospitals, and the USNS Comfort. The Comfort is birthed outside San Leandro Bay. A State of Emergency has been declared, consequently enabling me to receive all the necessary resources. Several victims have managed to escape from the Coliseum, and many of these persons have sustained grave injuries. Armored vehicles from the California National Guard and surrounding agencies have been parked in a semi-circular formation around the Coliseum to give cover to victims trying to swim across to safety and also to the law enforcement officials. I have already coordinated with the clinics, local hospitals, and the US Navy has released the USNS Comfort. The O.co Coliseum and its vicinity have consequently become ground zero.

With this information at hand, my first task will be to pinpoint a safe zone to set up the EMS teams. I will direct the EMS to set up casualty collection points (CCP) within the 180-degree perimeter about the Coliseum and near enough to the site of the carnage to aid the escapees, but just out of reach of the terrorists’ fire. A CCP, which is also referred to as a field treatment site, is a locality in a jurisdiction that is employed for the assembly, sorting, stabilization, and sequential casualty evacuation (Disaster Dictionary, 2009). This placement will ensure the safety of the health workers as they attend to the wounded victims who are streaming from the Coliseum. The CCP guidelines direct that each hospital is to be assigned one CCP and a second alternate site. The respective hospital is in charge of setting up, staffing, and furnishing this point (Haynes & Freeman, 1989). Prior evaluations to address the numbers of paraprofessional and professional personnel available at each point will be carried out. The emergency alert stations will request volunteer medical practitioners to report to the closest CCP facilities as soon as possible. For this scenario, the CCPs will be chosen based on the ability to keep the area secure and the ease of access for casualties.

Medical personnel will call out through speakers to all who are in need of assistance to carefully make their way to the CCPs to avoid being shot by stray bullets. This act will sort the patients out by with the severity of their injuries as well as physically clear the scene. With only one bridge partially intact and the sky over the scene full of smoke, the only other viable way to promptly evacuate the wounded to the medical facilities available will be via water. The marine ambulances will play a central role in this instance. It is critical at this point to decide which casualty goes to what facility. The USNS Comfort is set to receive several casualties.

Triage will be used in sorting the casualties. Triage is the procedure for identifying the priority treatments for patients with regard to the acuteness of their state (Briggs & Grossman, 2012). It efficiently controls the treatments of patients when there is an insufficient amount of resources to allow for the immediate treatment of all. The process is employed in almost all emergencies. Simple triage will be used in the initial stages of the rescue and will commence before the arrival of transportation. Simple triage involves the sorting of patients into two groups, i.e. those who have minor injuries, and those that are in need of urgent attention and have to be rushed to the hospital (Machester Triage Group, 2005). The paramedical personnel at the scene will assess each patient and label them to identify them, display the findings of the assessment, and pinpoint the primacy of the patient’s treatment need and transport out of the area. Triage tags will be used to this end.

The advanced triage will be used in case the number of living casualties gets very high, and the medical professionals deem that there are insufficient medical resources to treat all the injured individuals. Advanced triage is a case where trained medical practitioners deliberately deny persons that have sustained serious injuries advanced care as they are unlikely to live. The scarce resources are directed towards those who have higher chances of survival to raise it further. It happens where some patients are doomed to die as a result of the severity of their wounds notwithstanding medical care. Under such conditions, medical care accorded to people who are going to die will be viewed as care denied to others who would have survived or wholly recovered rather than be disabled had they received treatment (Briggs & Grossman, 2012).

Once this first lot of patients has been sorted successfully, the next task will be to select the appropriate medical facility to transport each patient to with respect to his/her condition. The first group of patients, i.e. those that are in urgent need of attention, will be rushed to the nearest hospitals in the area with the available ambulances. This move will be executed in the hope that the police will hold the terrorists in that one area so that they do not spread to the hospitals and wreak havoc there as well. Patients in an urgent need of attention will be prioritized for their condition demands so. In case the available ambulances do not suffice their number, then the other victims in this category will be transported to the USNS Comfort via marine ambulances as they wait to be airlifted to the hospitals and clinics. The choice of the facilities will depend on their capacity to handle particular emergency situations. My initial coordination with the various hospitals and clinics helped in the preparation for the reception of significant numbers of casualties as well as identify the kind of emergency situation that each facility could handle. The facilities that can handle all types of emergencies will be made exclusive to patients in chronic states so as to maximize their use. The patients with less severe injuries will be moved to the USNS Comfort and the other clinics and hospitals that are not designated for the critically wounded patients.

The media is covering every aspect of the attack. There is a live coverage of events, and thousands of families that are following the developments from the safety of their homes are constantly receiving updates. The media present can see all that is taking place within the 180-degree perimeter. It is crucial to note that the live coverage of the events without the Coliseum reaches the terrorists who are within through the screen sets and radio devices that are within and were to be used for media broadcasting. This state affords a perfect loophole through which the law enforcement can attempt to dupe the terrorists, based on their level of intelligence and gullibility. To capitalize on this opportunity firstly, I will firstly place a restriction to filming within the 180-degree perimeter that has been formed to give cover to the police and escaping victims. I will ask the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents to prevent media coverage within the 180-degree perimeter. I will, after that, contact the management of all the media groups present at the scene and instruct them to direct their personnel on ground zero not to covertly take footage of the activities within the 180-degree perimeter to deny the terrorists up-to-date information on the developments without. I will also tell them to instruct their news anchors on ground zero to deliberately broadcast false information regarding the progress of the law enforcement officials in securing the Coliseum, i.e. to report that the police have made not significant advancement since the incident began. The motive behind this rationale is to try and get the terrorists to drop their guard. The vast resources at my disposable including critical intelligence and powerful connections will see to it that this communication to the media fraternity has been effectuated.

The FBI Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team have made the decision to invade the Coliseum. SWAT teams are US police units that use military or specialized equipment as well as tactics (Halberstadt, 1994). They need a direction from me. It is evident that they will encounter substantial resistance if they are to advance from the 180-degree perimeter. This fact is so because there is still an ongoing exchange of fire between the terrorists and the police and the enemy is well alert here. It will be wise to maintain the fire at this end to keep the terrorists busy and distracted and possibly exhaust their ammunition while a second group of the SWAT team stealthily maneuvers its way to the opposite end of the Coliseum to make and intrusion from this there, hoping that they will encounter little or no resistance. They will move in in three waves. EMS from the state, city, county, and National Guard agencies will move in with the third wave of the attack to attend to the casualties inside the Coliseum. By moving in with the third wave, the EMS personnel will be sheltered from the heavy terrorist fire that will ensue in the first and second waves of the assault.

The SWAT teams have made their way into the parking lot and just discovered that the terrorists had withdrawn into the interior of the Coliseum. They now need to break a puncture hole on one of the Coliseum’s sides to gain entry. They have ruled out using explosives to avoid the possibility of wounding patrons. Firefighters have been called in to make the breach in the wall through which the SWAT teams can gain entry into the interior of the facility. One equipment that the firefighting crew will employ to make the hole in the wall is battering ram (enforcer). The enforcer is a manual battering ram that has been specially designed. It consists of a tubular steel make-device, a handle, and on the impact end, a steel pad that absorbs the impact. This machine can exert about three metric tons of force on walls. It weighs roughly 16 kilograms (PersonalDefenseNet, 2013). SWAT teams will stay on guard as the firefighters make the breach to respond to any enemy fire that will seek to counter this operation.

I will call in the firefighting crew from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to deal with the vehicles burning all around the Coliseum and emitting smoke that obstructs the view of the helicopters that are bringing in the SWAT teams. The four Landing Craft Air Cushions (LCAC) from Camp Pendleton will bring in the fire trucks and other heavy equipment necessary to combat the flames through amphibious landings on the western end of the Coliseum. Large pumps are staged on this section, and they will supply the water to the fire trucks. The fire crew will chiefly use their jets and hoses to spray water on the fire in the parking lot, but fire extinguishers will be employed in places with live cables. The police SWAT teams will provide cover as the firemen go about their assignment. The breach in the Coliseum’s wall is made finally, and the FBI and police SWAT teams go ahead with their operation and successfully neutralize the threat.

The aftermath of the incident has left 38,000 casualties with injuries ranging from dehydration to gunshot wounds and exposure. My next move will be to send the other EMS teams into the Coliseum to assess the situation and sort out the casualties and give first aid to all in need of it. Once this second lot of casualties has been triaged, the next task will be to evacuate them promptly. The National Guard has set up temporary bridges. At this point in time, I have hundreds of ambulances, a fleet of choppers, and numerous other emergency vehicles at my disposal. The National Response Framework calls forth for an integrated effort in handling emergencies. The five guiding principles that establish its fundamental doctrines include engaged partnership, adaptable, flexible, and scalable operational capabilities, tiered response, a oneness of effort via central command, and readiness to act (US Department of Homeland Security, 2013). My coordination to evacuate the 38,000 survivors will involve making telephone contacts with different agencies. I will communicate with the California Highway Patrol to clear the roads of civilian traffic to allow the ambulances and other emergency vehicles to have unobstructed movement as they evacuate the casualties. Additionally, I will arrange for all the nearby parks, schools, and colleges open parking lots to be reserved for emergency operations. The choppers will airlift the critically wounded patients to the appropriate hospitals as previously designated while others will be transported to the USNS Comfort.

The management of the dead is amongst the toughest phases of disaster response because of its profound and long-lasting effects on the community and the survivors. The Disaster Manuals and Guidelines Series directs for the establishment of a team in the Emergency Operations Center that will coordinate the management of the fallen victims. The primary operational partners for this team will include the civil defense, local rescue organizations, local funeral homes, coroners, and morticians, the military, fire service, and the National Red Cross (PAHO, 2004). I too will set up a team in the Emergency Operations Center and appoint different persons to be in charge of body recovery, identification, storage, information and communication, support for families, and logistics. The 2531 bodies will be ferried to various morgues for identification and further treatment.

Having in mind the fact that some terrorists have gotten away with critical intelligence on the manner of response that an attack of this nature is likely to be met, my next task will be to prepare, train, and plan for the next probable attack. My first step will be to set up adequate preventive apparatus that will seek to deter a reoccurrence of this incident. This initiative will involve the cooperation of the public members of whom I will request to be on high alert and inform the police of any unusual developments in their neighborhoods. I will direct for the deployment of fully equipped EMS teams and firefighting personnel and equipment to the venues for future mass gatherings of this kind with sufficient numbers of both staff and equipment in reserve. These two groups will have well-armed security escorts to ensure they will execute their roles effectively in case of an attack. I will also arrange for the training of emergency response personnel to handle considerable number of casualties, which will improve their effectiveness in dealing with emergency situations that involve significant numbers of casualties. All in all, the success of any such rescue operation depends on the cooperation of all the parties that are involved.

References

Boyer, D. (2015, June 24). Obama will allow the U.S. to negotiate directly with terrorists holding hostages. The Washington Times. Retrieved from http://www.washingtontimes.com/ news/2015/jun/24/obama-will-allow-us-negotiate-directly-terrorists-/?page=all

Briggs, J. K. & Grossman, V. G. A. (2012). Emergency Nursing: 5-Tier Triage Protocols. New York, NY: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Disaster Dictionary (2009). Casualty Collection Point (CCP). Retrieved from http://www.disasterdictionary.com/casualty-collection-point-ccp

Halberstadt, H. (1994). SWAT Team: Police Special Weapons and Tactics. Minneapolis, MN: Motorbooks International