Hospitals receive active shooter response training in northwest Arkansas

It's happening all over the country: active shooter situations.

Dr. Mike Clumpner, the president of Threat Suppression Inc., said,

"They come with very little warning signs. But I tell everyone out there these events are only happening about 25 times a year, so the likelihood of being involved is very, very, very low. But we want people to know their surroundings and know what they would do in case something did happen."

The North Arkansas Partnership for Health Education brought Clumpner to the Durand Center at North Arkansas College to speak to hospital workers across the Ozarks.

Clumpner explained the difference between an active shooter situation at a hospital compared to an active shooter situation at a school or bar.

"So in an active shooter event like we think of in schools, in Las Vegas and Orlando, that's an attack against a location," he said. "And what we see in hospital shootings is an attack against a person, and the other people who tend to be shot happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time."

Delbert McCutchen with North Arkansas Regional Medical Center heard Clumpner at a conference a couple years back.

McCutchen said, "One of the things that he mentioned was most of the active shooter things occur in towns under the population of 100,000. And that really got me to thinking is how well prepared are we in our own hometown of Harrison, Arkansas, for these kinds of things to occur?"

And other hospitals like Baxter Regional Medical Center, Cox and Mercy all had employees come to participate.

Clumpner said, "Recognizing suspicious behavior. We talk about that. If it's a patient, if it's a family member or if it's a staff member. Because in some of these cases a staff member is conducting the shooting."​

McCutchen said, "It's easy to always say well we'll let the police take care of this. Or we'll let somebody else take care of this when really it's all of our jobs to be kind of prepared in this day and age."

Clumpner also had a session for houses of worship Monday evening. He will hold a joint public safety response to active shooter course, which is geared more toward law enforcement officials and school administrators at the Durand Center on Tuesday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.