Coliseum Medical Centers hold active shooter training with Bibb SWAT

Suzanne Brett was on duty Wednesday morning when she and others working in the emergency room of Coliseum Medical Centers heard noises coming from an empty room.

"We knocked on the door to see what was going on," said Brett, a registered nurse. "The door was barricaded, and we saw that there was an active shooter in that room."

The mock incident was a training exercise coordinated by the hospital and the Bibb County's Sheriff's Office.

"We have done some recent training, so it was definitely fresh on my mind," Brett said. "But it was a surprise this morning."

The mock intruder was labeled as an active shooter, which let Brett and the others immediately know it was a drill.

"Everyone was able to do what they were supposed to do in a very calm manner," she said.

A code designated for an active shooter drill was overhead on the hospital's speaker system, staff and patients were placed in a safe area, the emergency room was locked down and the sheriff's SWAT responded and cleared the area of the mock shooter, Brett said.

Liana Rogers, emergency preparedness coordinator for Coliseum Health System, said the training exercise had been planned for months.

"We wanted to do this because we need to make our environment safer for our staff and our patients," she said.

The man who pretended to be the active shooter was a heating and air-conditioning technician who was a familiar face to the emergency room staff. A bright yellow sign with "ACTIVE" written in large, bold letters was pinned to the front and back of his shirt.

"Our drill did not involve any weapons of any sort -- no fake weapons or anything like that -- simply because of the nature of our business," Rogers said. "We didn't want to simulate something like that."

Anyone in the hospital during the training exercise would have heard the announcement of the active shooter drill, Rogers said.

Bibb County sheriff's Lt. David Freeland, SWAT commander, said his team responded as if the situation were real - minus the weapons.

"Businesses, schools, hospitals should have some type of plan in case something like this happens," Freeland said. "That way you're not caught off guard."

Such training exercises also allow SWAT members to become familiar with a facility ahead of a potential real event, while giving business, school and hospital professionals an opportunity to practice the plan.

Brett was thankful to have participated in the drill.

"I'm very grateful that our administration takes this so seriously, because this is a real possibility for us here in the emergency department," she said.

To contact writer Becky Purser, call 256-9559, or find her on Twitter@macon.com.

This story was originally published December 16, 2015 at 6:12 PM with the headline "Coliseum Medical Centers hold active shooter training with Bibb SWAT ."