13 students, one gunman.

Health Science Technology 2 students participated in a mock shooting at Cedar Park Regional Medical Center, Aug. 27. While the HST2 classes usually visits the hospital for clinical rotations, this was a chance to see the medical center in an emergency situation.

“We were introduced to some of the medical staff that we would be working with first hand,” senior Christie Tonnu said. “It was good for Rouse students to go and experience something like that.”

Upon arrival the students were told the scenario of what would happen. The police assigned people to be hostages or dead. The scenario planned out to be a shooter who was, a medical staff employee, and he held hostages in a room, eventually “committing suicide.”

“At first I didn’t really react, but when the police put me in the room where the shooter was I just started to panic and hyperventilate,” senior Alex Worley said.

Everything was set up to be a training for the police and the medical staff to be aware of shooting procedures and how to be prepared if a real shooting occurs.

“A lot of the staff knew what was going on,” Tonnu said. “The police officers and firemen didn’t know what was going on, so it was definitely training for them.”

Since it was a mock shooting, some of the students were pronounced dead or injured. The shooter used a pop gun to “kill” or “injure” his victims. As the police came through they would tie ribbons on the students and medical staff’s wrists. The colors representing the ribbons were: green – last to go (safe), yellow – moderate injury, red – serious injury, or black which would show that they are dead.

“The ribbons were used to show how severe a person’s injury would be,” Tonnu said.