Emergencies relating to health, fires, intruders, etc can happen any time any place. Whether you’re trying to remain calm and exit or aid the situation in whatever way you can, having a good attitude and staying focused can make sure everything goes smoothly.
Listening to the people around you, the directions, and to stay calm helps the situation for who its happening to and for the people around seem a lot less stressful. When students and staff freak out it causes chaos which can cause mess ups or rifts in plans. Knowing when to help and when to walk away helps move things along and make sure everyone is safe.
“The most important thing is to just really clearly listen to instructions, look to the adults for the appropriate thing to do, listen, move quickly, move calmly and just follow instructions,” Counselor Shanna Crookes said.
When seeing a traumatic event, whether it be a health scare of a student or staff member, a fire, or a lockdown, you never know how you may react. In the moment some may brush it off or some may freak out. The best course of action is to talk it out, whether you think it affected you or not. You can go to many different people such as parents, teachers, counselors or even friends.
“I think students should, first of all, they should talk to someone if they see something traumatic or if they feel something traumatic from a past event or current event. Like a counselor, just talk about it with your friends” said Diesel King (‘27).
Even if students don’t think about anything going wrong, there are many preparations in place in the case that it does. Staff members are trained and have plans set in place to aid every situation and make sure everyone is safe. So watching what is happening around you as well as trying to listen and stay out of the way is very important for plans to be executed correctly.
“But at any one point in time, something can and does at times go wrong. So for me, when somebody needs help, whether it’s a student or a staff member, I always bring my emergency backpack with all of our first aid supplies and things to give CPR.” Nurse Krista Gibson said.
After an emergency, Counselors are open to talk to and listen to what students may be feeling after an emergency. Even If there is no one else a student feels comfortable talking to, feelings of uneasiness and stress are normal and need to be spoken aloud to overcome.
“We basically clear our schedules and all five counselors make ourselves available to just give students a safe place to talk about what they saw and process their feelings,” Crookes said.
During an emergency it’s best to let the professionals such as EMT’s, Paramedics, Firefighters, staff members or other first responders handle what needs to be done, and stay aware of what’s being told for you to do. But, knowing the correct way to respond to a situation can be the difference between being in the way, being helpful, and getting out of the way.
The many courses such as Sports med, Human body, bio med, and Sports med 2 offered for students to take can help prepare them to know what the best plan of action for themselves is.
“ I learned how to do CPR. I also learned that picking a certain person to call 9-1-1 is much easier than just yelling out calling 9-1-1[…] I also learned many injuries and how to either prevent the injury or recover from it.” said Addi Green (‘26).
