By: Conner Williams Editor-in-Chief
I like to think that if I were in a situation in which a person wanted to do me bodily harm, my animal brain would take over and I would fight back or run.
In the face of danger, our innate instincts tell us to stand and fight or flee.
We can never really know what type of reaction we will have until that situation happens, and of course I hope that neither I, nor any of you ever have to find out exactly what you would do.
However, A.L.I.C.E. (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) training teaches people to do just that: trust their instincts in emergency situations.
We have been taught for years that in an active shooter situation, we are supposed to lockdown and hide.
This method has shown to be extremely ineffective over the years, as we have seen that in the large majority of school shootings, those that hide are the ones that get killed.
Part of the A.L.I.C.E. training I attended on Wednesday, Nov. 11 had the audience listen to a 911 call from the Columbine High School shooting.
A teacher at Columbine, Patti Nielson, had hid in the library with some students and had told her students to stay down and hide under the desks. She called 911 and did everything she possibly could to follow her training.
But that was just the problem: her formal training directly contributed to the loss of lives.
During the call, Nielson could be heard telling students to get back under the desks, meaning that they were trying to get up to run and she directed them to stay down.
That is a problem. Those kids’ survival instincts told them to get out of there, but they were told to stay by a person of authority.
But, does the fault really lie on Nielson? Of course not.
She was simply doing exactly what she was trained to do, and she conducted herself perfectly under extremely stressful circumstances.
The really terrible thing is that there were doors all along the back wall of the library that they could have fled out of, but their training told them to stay put and wait for the police.
We need to break away from the traditional lockdown and hide protocol and learn to trust our instincts.
Running away is the best option. Human beings were built to run quickly in long distances; trust yourself and get out as fast as possible in the face of danger.
I generally don’t endorse violence, but in a life-or-death situation with an active shooting/killer, you must do absolutely anything to survive.
Officer Trevor Jackson of Campus Public Safety presented the training session, telling us to use any and everything at our disposal to distract and otherwise disorient the shooter/killer.
Throw your phone at them at then run the other direction. Any sort of disorientation will throw off the shooter’s plan and buy you precious seconds to get away, even mere seconds are crucial.
I sincerely hope that none of us has to find out how finely tuned our survival instincts truly area, but we need to be prepared for the worst.
Always trust your instincts, and do everything you can to get away from the situation.
I highly recommend that you participate in an A.L.I.C.E. training on campus. Upcoming dates can be found on the CPS webpage.
