By Larry Celona and Bruce Golding, The New York Post
Security officials at New York-area hospitals plan to train medical workers to deal with the inevitable threat of an “active shooter” following overseas terror attacks on health-care facilities, The Post has learned.
“It’s not a question of if anymore — it’s a question of when,” said retired NYPD commander Robert Casazza, president of the Metropolitan Healthcare Security Directors Association.
The MHSDA last week got copies of a two-part instructional video it commissioned for distribution to its members, who work at 35-plus hospitals in and around the Big Apple.
The videos show what to do in case of attack, and how to keep a hospital running once it’s over — when cops take over to investigate.
(See preview of a two-part training series on Active Shooter preparedness in healthcare institutions. The production included expert commentary along with dramatized sequences of an active-shooter event. Courtesy of SniffenPictures and YouTube)
The videos include an interview with nurse Andy Hull, who was wounded when a demented, 85-year-old patient opened fire with a smuggled handgun inside Danbury (Connecticut) Hospital in 2010.
In March, ISIS gunmen disguised as doctors killed more than 30 people at a military hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, and terrorists have also targeted hospitals in Syria and Pakistan.
