Omaha Mall Shootings

[Jeff]

God be with the families of the victims in this tragic event. I drive past that mall everyday to and from work and it brings tears to my eyes everytime.

[BrewDog]

Hear, hear.
What is going on that people nowadays have to go to crowded places and shoot people they don't know.

Sad.

[DecoJuicer]

It's odd that this happened again.

I just got this months copy of a magazine that is written for 911 professionals, and they profiled the mall shooting in Salt Lake City. The 911 lines were jammed up for 7 hours after the shooting was over. That's 7 HOURS. People continued to call to try to find out about loved ones and get info on the shooting.

I've got to tell you folks that these types of incidents have a tremendous affect on first responders(dispatchers, police, fire, paramedics). I just had a class this week about critical incident stress management for 911 professionals, and it was one of the most emotionally draining training sessions that I have ever been involved in. We actually watched a small video segment of a debriefing of paramedics after the Oklahoma city bombings. There wasn't a dry eye in the room when that video was done playing.

So when you are saying your prayers, please remember all of the "everyday heroes" that had to deal with the shooting and its aftermath.

[Jeff]

Originally posted by DecoJuicer
So when you are saying your prayers, please remember all of the "everyday heroes" that had to deal with the shooting and its aftermath.

Absolutely they should be remembered. I just watched a local news cast that had an interview with first responder parademics. What was incredible was that after they were done at the mall they went back to work and ended up responding to other calls that evening.

[DecoJuicer]

The "good" thing about large scale events like this is that they tend to stop other types of crime.

People are so busy watching what is going on that they forget to beat up their spouse, steal from the local mega-mart, steal cars, etc. The people that really get it hard are the dispatchers and the paramedics. Medical emergencies still occur, sometimes in even higher numbers, and somebody has to answer the phones and somebody has to go administer aid.

9/11 was a great example of this. Crime came to a stand still in New York as the city pulled together, but medicals went up. Paramedics still had to respond to these, even as they were grieving for their fallen friends. Thankfully, a system has been put in place to help first responders deal with the emotional fall out from these types of incidents.

When I watched that debriefing from Oklahoma city, the person that I felt the most sorry for was a young paramedic who was there on his first day on the job. He said at one point that a man approached him with a limp child and he just threw his hands in the air and said, "If he's dead, I can't take him, I can't take one more dead one." Then the child cried out. That young man said that he felt so guilty about his own selfishness. I almost had to leave the room myself at that point.

[garym]

Originally posted by DecoJuicer
It's odd that this happened again.


I've got to tell you folks that these types of incidents have a tremendous affect on first responders(dispatchers, police, fire, paramedics).

i cant imagine the affect.
my wife and i have friends in NYC, on 9/11 the husband was in paris on business. but his wife watched the 2nd plane hit the tower, and then saw them fall from her office acrossed town. her account of it sends chills through a body, when she told us about it.