VIDEO: Nursing Home Active Shooter Drill

OKOLONA, Miss.(WCBI) – An emergency situation can break out at any moment.

Incidents, like the one in Las Vegas, are exactly why the town of Okolona isn’t taking any chances.

“I hate to think anyone would come into the facility and do this sort of thing but this day and age you really just don’t know,”said Nursing Home Administrator  said Aileen Holt.

Since you never know, Chickasaw County EMA Director Linda Griffin says you always prepare.

“We much rather find out our deficiencies in a drill than in a real live situation. We can go back and critique our plan, talk about it, and be glad we did it in our emergency response plan drill or exercise instead of an actual event,” said Griffin.

Wednesday morning, Okolona; law enforcement, first responders, and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency participated in the drill.

The exercise is a required part of the facility’s emergency policy.

Holt says, just because it’s a nursing home doesn’t mean it’s exempt from evil.

“A drill at this magnitude is a great thing to keep people aware, in the community that, things can happen and things  happen that we don’t expect to happen, even at the nursing home setting. Our staff is trained to try and keep everybody as safe as possible,”said Holt.

” You know they are at a disadvantage because they are a vulnerable population. We have to consider something like that happening and we have to approach them in a different manner because of their capabilities of exacting events. It’s more on our part to do more to move them, to communicate with them,”said Griffin.

Police Chief William Randle says it’s great practice for the residents and his officers.

“A lot of this training here, we don’t get till we are in a police academy. It’s an eye opener, when that call comes. I’ve been in service since 2011 so that’s when I came out, it’s 2017. If you don’t run any drills, it’s what I plan on starting with our police department now is running drills to keep us up on our ability to handle situations like this,” said  Randle.

Webster County will also conduct an emergency drill Thursday afternoon.