Students and staff at the University of North Florida participated in the school’s active-assailant training exercise during intersession.

The training exercise, meant to prepare first responders for potential mass casualty incidents, is the first instance of UNF holding a training exercise of this scale, with the school previously holding indoor training sessions in classrooms. 

The exercise simulated a real-time active assailant incident, including first responders checking for injured individuals and missing people being searched for, as well as survivor management afterward.

“The safety of our campus is UNF’s top priority,” said UNF Interim President Angela Garcia Falconetti. “We are extremely grateful for the opportunity to conduct large-scale coordinated emergency response exercises with our local first responders.”

Student and staff participation

The school allowed students and staff to volunteer as crisis actors for the activity, and Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Academy Instructor Anthony Dziedzicki thanked the volunteers before explaining what to expect.

“We can only do so much with cardboard and mannequins, but we put live people in here; it changes the dynamic, so thank you,” said Dziedzicki.

The volunteers were kept inside the Student Union food court and had time to mentally prepare before the exercise.

Ann Scheuren, a student and employee at UNF, described her feelings towards the simulation.

“Unfortunately, I do believe that this is something that’s needed, but I’m excited, and I’m nervous at the same time,” said Scheuren. “The laws that we have, the actions that we’ve seen, or therefore lack of action, which is action itself, it unfortunately is an occurrence that may continue to happen, which is why we have to do an event like this…to train the university.”

Scheuren played the role of a daughter who needed to be reunited with her mother, played by her coworker Valerie Odom, the Associate Vice President for Administration and Finance at UNF.

“I am hopefully prayerful. I have a son that just graduated from Florida A&M University. There have been times when I’ve been concerned about his safety,” said Odom. “I’ve worked in education administration for 32 years; it’s sad that we have to go through these drills with the way that the climate is today, but I want UNF to be prepared in case the unfortunate happens.”

Korbin Blastow, a senior majoring in Communications with military experience, had deeper insight into similar training exercises. “I’ve been in the National Guard for three years and we’ve done a lot of training, especially simulation-type ones for mass casualties or events that go crazy.”

Blastow highlighted the importance of training exercises, such as the simulation at UNF. “The more reps that you get in the crazier scenarios, the more that you get prepared for that situation and hopefully better prepared for the situations that are a little less chaotic,” said Blastow.

After the active assailant portion of the exercise was completed, Gabby Valerio, one of the volunteers who pretended to have an injury, described her experience.

“At first…I saw people running, and then I heard someone yell get down, and I just dropped…I went over to near the bar area… and hid with some other people, and I faked a dislocation of the knee from hitting the pavement too hard.”

“They came after a little while and found us. Once they found out I had a knee injury, they helped me over to the side of the room where everybody was and had me sit down in one of the chairs. Once they were able to clear the area…they indicated who had injuries and what kinds of injuries and helped all of us get out there so we could get medical attention.”

The simulation allowed volunteers to scan a QR code to sign a form listing their name, location, and whether they were safe. Volunteers who needed to be reunited with loved ones were given a separate QR code.

“In a situation like this, you never know what’s gonna go on, especially when you’re not the first person to see it, so seeing the chaos displayed by some of the other students and faculty kinda played into our part of mass confusion, mass chaos, not knowing what’s going on,” said Blastow.

“Seeing Florida Highway Patrol, JSO, and campus police all work together to find us and make sure that we’re safe and accounted for while taking care of the threat so that way we can safely get out of here was very good cause obviously there’s all these threats going on with all the other shootings that happen and making sure that the police for us know what they’re doing is very comforting and it’s good to see first hand,” said Blastow.

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