Mock school shooting disaster drill at DMC Sinai-Grace helps ready for worst-case scenario | FOX 2 Detroit

Mock school shooting disaster drill at DMC Sinai-Grace helps ready for worst-case scenario

A mock school shooting disaster drill at Sinai-Grace Monday to help the hospital system stay prepared.

The backstory:

"All available ed physicians and nursing staff please report to ambulance triage," announced a worker on the overhead intercom.

Student participants from Detroit Renaissance and Lincoln high schools arrived to DMC Sinai-Grace for the drill.

"We are a Level 2 Trauma Center that services Northwest Detroit," said Gary Purushotham, CEO of DMC-Sinai Grace. "We are the only hospital that does that, we are a certified Level 2 Center. And we do get our share of active traumas, so we have to be always ready."

Zu'erra Beard was one of the student volunteers.

"The fact that they have to do it, is very unpleasant," she said. "I don’t like that, but I am happy there are precautions to make sure they are prepared."

School shootings are all too common, including the attack at Oxford High School in November 2021. Another mass shooting took place at Michigan State University on campus in 2023.

"We never know when something like this could happen," said Dr. Keith Alangaton, EMS director. "Ideally, we get a couple of minutes' notice, and we get time to prepare, but that’s the whole purpose of these drills. So that we have an algorithm that we follow and an action plan that gets activated."

After the drill, some of the students are contemplating how to put these instructions that they learn to a possible career choice.

"Personally, I’m really interested in a career in medicine," said Jayanah Branch. "So I think things like this are really helpful to show me like, what it would be like working in different spaces like this."

The Source: Interviews with staffers at DMC Sinai Grace and volunteers 

Detroit