Israel National Paramedic Service holds mass shooting response training at Southfield synagogue
SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (FOX 2) - Congregation Shaarey Zedek Synagogue in Southfield hosted an emergency EMS training session if the place of worship were targeted in a mass shooting.
The training was conducted by Israel’s National Paramedic Service.
"We are willing to share our experience we know how to do it very well," said Yonatan Yagodovsky, director, Magen David Adom In Israel. "It is an experience that comes from the heartache of violence. I think our experience back from Israel, dealing with so many terror attacks, has given us unfortunately a lot of information knowledge and experience."
Federal agents arrested a 19-year-old man from the Upper Peninsula last Friday for allegedly gathering weapons to prepare for a mass shooting at an East Lansing synagogue.
It’s a disturbing trend of hatred targeting the Jewish community.
"We’re terribly concerned," said Robert Rich, from Congregation Shaarey Zedek. "I think that bringing visibility to what you can do as an individual, and be prepared, is really important. You almost can’t do too much of this to be prepared."
The training uses exercises to focus on what to do if an attack takes place.
"How to manage the situation, how to treat people that are hurt, how to protect them," said Yagodovsky. "To activate their emergency protocol of this synagogue.
"The first seven minutes also can be a game changer for people who are severely hurt and they need to be treated from point zero until official help arrives."
As a synagogue works to increase security measures there’s already a number of things in place in case there is an emergency.
"We have a lot of things in our security plan you can see and a lot you can’t see," Rich said.
But as this synagogue preps for what could happen, they hope the training and security measures never have to put into motion.
"How important it is that we can get past this point of so much hate in the world and so much violence," Rich said.
