Hostage Taker Takeaway

September 2, 2010 by
Filed under: Safety 

By now, most people have probably heard that a wackjob took hostages at the headquarters of the Discovery Channel.

There are two takeaways from this event.  The first comes from Weerd Beard:

And one final word, its hard for a nut to take an armed hostage hostage….

But the second comes from the text of the article:

Melissa Shepard, 32, of Peterborough, N.H., a consultant who works in the building, said she was on the third floor when someone announced over a loudspeaker that there was a situation in the lobby and people should stay at their desks.

After some time, they were told to move to the other end of the building. She said she was among a dozen workers who went into an office, shut the door and turned off the lights.

Then she said someone knocked on the door and told them to leave the building. She said there was some confusion as they were told to go to an upper floor or down the stairs.

“Finally, I screamed, ‘Tell us where we need to go! … I just want to get out of there,’” she said. “I was shaking. … I was like, ‘What do we do? What do we do?’”

If you don’t have a plan, people, this is how you end up during a crisis.  Blubbering and looking for direction.

Second…don’t sit around and wait!  When you hear that there is an “incident” over the loudspeaker do you:

a) Shut the door and turn out the lights and wait to die

b) Get the hell out of there

If it’s me, I choose b.

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Comments

4 Comments on Hostage Taker Takeaway

  1. Dod on Thu, 2nd Sep 2010 10:21 am

    2. At my former office our evacuation instructions (regardless of the cause) were to gather at the stairwell and await instructions. My position on that was “Hell no!”. Did they learn nothing from (a) 9/11 and (b) Virginia Tech?

  2. Weerd Beard on Thu, 2nd Sep 2010 11:18 am

    3. my plans as a rule with any “situation” is to get out of Dodge, preferably via a path as far from the situation as possible.

    If something attempts to stop my egress I will respond with as much force as needed.

  3. George on Thu, 2nd Sep 2010 12:18 pm

    4. Amen to that, Weerd.

  4. Fun with telemarketers : Newbie Shooter on Thu, 2nd Sep 2010 7:30 pm

    5. [...] to start over at “observe”. One of the important parts of having a plan in the event of Bad Things happening is that it gets you through the “Orient” phase as quickly as possible. Instead of [...]

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