Ep 117: Managing Uninjured Survivors
Episode 117
Published Aug 4, 2025
Last updated Feb 18, 2026
Duration: 27:54
Episode Summary
Survivor management is an important aspect of crisis response. How do you separate witnesses and potential victims? Do you have a secure, safe holding area? Can you avoid re-traumatizing these survivors? Today’s episode tackles these questions and more.
Episode Notes
What happens to the uninjured survivors after an active shooter or mass casualty event? In Episode 117 of the Active Shooter Incident Management podcast, host Bill Godfrey and his team of instructors from the National Center for Integrated Emergency Response dive into the complex challenges faced by responders when managing large crowds of uninjured survivors at outdoor and indoor venues.
This discussion covers:
- Immediate actions law enforcement and EMS must take with panicked, fleeing crowds
- Tactics for identifying witnesses, potential victims, and bystanders—and why separating these groups is crucial
- The importance of security, safe holding areas, and the real-life logistics of "corralling" hundreds of people
- How to use bystanders and uninjured family members to assist with patient care when resources are scarce
- Differences in managing survivors at outdoor parks versus indoor sites like courthouses or schools
- Why survivors must be shielded not just from physical threats, but also from re-traumatization and the media
- The power of language: why calling people "survivors" (not "victims") aids recovery and resilience
- Gaps in current law enforcement training and practical suggestions for improvement
If you're responsible for public safety, emergency preparedness, or support roles during critical incidents—or you want to understand the unseen aspects that make survivor management so difficult—this episode delivers real-world advice, examples, and compassionate strategies for one of the most overlooked elements of crisis response.
View this episode on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/KfYRoUeHRz4
Transcript
Bill Godfrey:On our last podcast, we talked about the challenges of responding to an attack in large outdoor venues with large numbers of people, and almost immediately when we got done, we started talking about the challenges of managing the uninjured survivors that remain, and that's today's topic, stick around.
Welcome to the Active Shooter Incident Management podcast, my name is Bill Godfrey, your podcast host, I am rejoined by my same three instructors from the National Center of Integrated Emergency Response as we had on the last podcast, this is almost gonna be a part two, Billy Perry, good to have you back in the house.
Billy Perry:
Glad to be back.
Bill Godfrey:
Chad Lake, good to have you back.
Chad Lake:
Thank you for having me.
Bill Godfrey:
And Ron.
Ron Otterbacher:
Thank you, sir.
Bill Godfrey:
All right, so as we were talking through the challenges of responding to attacks in outdoor venues where there's been large gatherings, and this would both be a planned event like some sort of concert or something like that, and, of course, unplanned stuff, and as soon as we got finished, we started chatting about managing... The difficulty of managing... Corralling and managing the uninjured in that area, so I thought it would be really good for us to talk about that.
So, what are some of the things from a law enforcement perspective, and let's go back to the last scenario that we used on the last one, which is, it's one of these large parks that are very, very popular on the weekends for the birthday parties and family gatherings and things like that, and you've had an attack, there is no more gunfire when you get there, you've initiated rescue task forces, they're working on patient care, you're looking around, you're thinking about the checklist, what are you thinking about all of these uninjured survivors that are in varied degrees of panic, fleeing, hiding, run?
Ron Otterbacher:
You want to determine what their role in this situation was.
Billy Perry:
If they had one.
Ron Otterbacher:
Were they...? Yeah, were they potential victims? You know, were they part of the targeted group? Were they witnesses? Were they just people that were in the area that have no idea whatsoever? And how are you gonna sequester the different groups? You know, if the potential targets... Are you gonna keep them with everyone else? Probably wanna move them away from each other, witnesses, you wanna try to determine who are witnesses, and, you know, those that say, "Well, I heard people screaming," you know, is there any value in that? Then where are you gonna put them? You know, if you're in an open area, do you have a safe place? 'Cause now, once I grab hold of them, figuratively, they're mine, I'm responsible for them and I've gotta ensure their safety, so are we in a situation where we're able to determine that they're in a safe area?
Bill Godfrey:
Billy, that brings the... One of the questions that was on my mind, do you have to screen the rest of the park because you didn't find the bad guy?
Billy Perry:
You have to gather intelligence where you can and find out if they are a witness, like Ron was saying, and you're responsible for them, and we're responsible for 'em anyway, and I think... They've already had a traumatic day if they were involved, they've already undergone issues, and we don't take a hippocratic oath, we kinda should, and, you know, we don't wanna do any harm to them, and we're not gonna handcuff 'em, you know, that's one of the things when you first start doing things, as people start putting people... "I don't know who they are," well, first of all, you're not gonna have the handcuff fairy bringing you 400 pair of handcuffs, you know? And plus, their day's already been pretty horrific, so let's not compound it by doing that, and we do need to provide... What about if the weather turns bad? What if, you know, the exposure? What if, you know, again, from other gunfire? What about from even the media? And, you know, we have to be cognizant of all that, and we do have a responsibility, if we can't find 'em especially, to find out... To gather information that we can to do a subsequent investigation.
Bill Godfrey:
How important is it to get a perimeter over this pretty quickly?
Billy Perry:
It's super important, and, you know, it has to be a really good perimeter because a porous Perimeter isn't a perimeter, and we've both had those, correct? And so, that's where a good perimeter is important, but again, what... You have to be astute enough and you have to be on your game enough to know, "What rights do I have to detain this person and to hold them?"
Bill Godfrey:
Chad, from a fire-EMS perspective, let's say you're... One or two rescue task forces in there, and it's pretty common when you have a lot of people around, some of the bystanders are gonna step up and try to help the people that have been shot, are you gonna...? If you're a little shorthanded, are you gonna put them to work, try to give them some guidance, get them to help, what are your thoughts on that?
Chad Lake:
That's pretty hard because, what are the injuries? Do you want them to see some of the stuff that we're about to see? One of the things when it comes to the uninjured is what if it's a family member? What if it's a spouse that's hurt and I'm the husband or a child? And they're uninjured, they're not gonna separate, so I might have to, I say... Use the word, "Compassionately direct them," at that point, I would use them to help because then they feel like they are making a difference versus, "Hey, you're uninjured, I need you to go there with law enforcement," that's not gonna happen nine times out of 10, depending on your relationship with your spouse, but for the most part... For the most part it is... That's difficult, and again, depending on the... If it's people that got trampled and they might have some broken bones or bruises or, you know, hurt that way, I would probably use the uninjured to maybe direct the focus on them, and so that they seem like they're doing something, especially if we don't have, like what Ron said, we don't have a safe place for them yet and we're still trying to gather all these uninjured away, so it is gonna be challenging.
Billy Perry:
But packing a gunshot wound full of Kerlix is...
Chad Lake:
Yeah, I'm not gonna let the citizen probably do that, but something... Minor injuries, maybe keep 'em focused on that and kind of keep their mind away.
Bill Godfrey:
How do you make that transition, guys, when...? You know, so Chad's got his rescue task forces there, they're working the injured, the ambulances are... You know, we've set an ambulance exchange point, we got a couple there that are ready to load, there's a handful of bystanders that are assisting and being helpful, how do you, on the law enforcement side, begin that transition of trying to organize the survivors? What does that look like when you start?
You know, you've got a... Let's say we got a perimeter, we got an outer perimeter set, maybe you got an inner perimeter that's right around the immediate site where you're dealing with the injured, what does that look like when you start to try to organize the crowd?
Ron Otterbacher:
I think it depends on your resources that you have, you got an outer perimeter, an inner perimeter, and you got people addressing the initial threat, how many more people do you have? You know, that's gonna... You know, with the exception of someone like NYPD or maybe LAPD, that's got resources that may pretty much take up what you got, so you've gotta figure out how you can do multiple things at one time or who you can get to, that may be a good thing to, you know, talk to these people that are there and say, "Look, I want you to be, like, the block captain for this group of people, keep them here and we'll be with you in just a minute once we get everything stabilized there," you know, try and quote, "deputize" these people to help you out, because if you've got everyone tied up on all those other things, what resources do you have to maintain this stuff? So those are all things you're gonna have to think about when we're faced with this situation.
Billy Perry:
Where can you put 'em?
Ron Otterbacher:
Right. Absolutely.
Billy Perry:
Where can you put 'em? 'Cause sitting out in the middle of the Florida sun in July is suboptimal.
Chad Lake:
And also, how long is that going to take?
Billy Perry:
How long is it gonna take?
Chad Lake:
Are they gonna be up there for hours and are they gonna be antsy to, like, "All right, I'm ready to go home. I've had a pretty stressful day today, I'm ready..." "Let me go home." You know, and how do you keep them there?
Ron Otterbacher:
And because it's not pre-planned, we don't have buses standing by to be able to put 'em in air conditioned buses or something, so do we have a contact on the weekend that can bring a bunch of buses? You know, there's all kinds of things that... We need to broaden our perspective as far as preparing for the unplanned incident that... You know, we think about... We got the planned incident where we say, "Okay, we got all these resources, we got dump trucks, we got everything," for the unplanned incident, what are we gonna do in that situation? Where are we gonna put 'em? Can we get buses there? Do we have a contact? Even if we call the bus company, do they have buses running on the weekend? You know, there's all kinds of things that we've gotta consider while we're sitting here with no stress in our life whatsoever before it ever occurs.
Bill Godfrey:
I'm not sure... Let me ask the question again this way. Billy, I'm gonna put you on the spot, so you got... RTF work is going on, you got your inner and outer perimeter, there's guys... There's enough guys around the immediate inner to control the rescue area that's going on, and that's underway, and there's people left that are freaked out, they... You know, it's a park, so it's fenced, there's only one or two ways in and out and they're blocked, nobody's leaving, how do you begin to talk to that crowd? How do you begin to decide what you're gonna do with 'em?
Billy Perry:
Well, that is a hard one. I think first, just talking to... You know, how big a crowd is it? Is the suspect in custody or down, you know, have we got that? If we do, it's pretty, I hate to say simple, but at that point it's... That's when we go into our, we've all had to talk with citizens thousands of times, "Listen, I know your day's been terrible and I'm super sorry about that, I can't fix that, but from here on out, you're gonna be okay, we're gonna work on not having any more trauma today, here, I need you to work with me, and here's what we're gonna do," and give 'em an idea of what's about to happen and what's to be expected, you're gonna have to talk to somebody to make sure... To find out what you've seen, what you haven't seen, just be frank with 'em, you can address 'em as a group and say, "The more we cooperate, the quicker we can be be done," and like Chad said, get 'em out of here, so... But it's gonna be a time consuming issue.
Bill Godfrey:
And a little stressful, I'm guessing.
Billy Perry:
A lot of stressful, for them.
Bill Godfrey:
And especially if the... If you don't have a suspect down or in custody, that makes this a little more challenging?
Billy Perry:
Absolutely. Exponentially. Exponentially, because we don't know where they are, and the investigative side is more urgent, so we can try to locate them and find out where they are, if they're headed somewhere else to do something else.
Bill Godfrey:
A little bit more clear on, "Why this attack here and now?" And... Which can lead you to figuring out where the suspect is or may-
Ron Otterbacher:
Feel they may return.
Chad Lake:
And that's probably gonna be a lot of questions coming from the uninjured and the witnesses as well, and the survivors, like, "Did you find the shooter? Who is it?" Or, "Did you find the attacker? Are they coming back?" You don't... Really don't have the answers, you can't lie to 'em, obviously, but if you say, "We don't have the shooter, we're we're working on it," are they gonna feel comfortable standing there in the open to do a statement? You know, so that's... How, you know, how would you address that?
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, that's an interesting... And I do think it gets into a little bit of what you guys talked about earlier, is having to get the EOC up on the weekend and, you know, potentially having a venue you can move those people to that... It does have some security and gets 'em out, especially if you don't know where the shooter is.
You know, Chad, I'm gonna revisit something we talked about a little earlier on the RTF thing, I think if it's an open-air situation like this and the ambulance is able to get relatively close to where that group of injured is lying, I think as soon as I get an ambulance up, I'm gonna be trying to kind of hustle people in and, you know, maybe we've gotta put some extra staffing in the back with the medic that's assigned on the rig, but I think I want to get 'em out of that park a little faster if I can, you know, some things that we might take time to do on the ground...
You know, it's not a hot zone, but it's a pretty warm zone, and I think, in my mind, I'd be trying to get 'em into the ambulance a little more quickly, maybe even before I've done some of the key stabilizing treatment that we would normally do, assuming we've got the ambulances, assuming the ambulance has the staff to be able to handle the criticality of the patient, you know, all those kinds of things. I mean, I don't wanna shortcut that, but what's your thoughts on that? Are you factoring that into how you react when you're triaging and doing the medical care?
Chad Lake:
Sure, because you still... You're in that area of vulnerability, you know, and how secure does that RTF team feel? Because, again, what's the intel going on? Is the attacker still at large? Is the attacker down? Is there no...? Did they leave the scene? So you still have that sense of vulnerability, so... And maybe don't feel super safe yet, even though it is a warm zone and you do have the resources there, but yeah, let's load 'em up into transport units and get 'em going, and I think what that also helps is it shows that we are doing something, and... Versus, "Well, why are we waiting?" "Well, we still have 10 more people to triage," so we have the resources now, less are gonna... Now, are you gonna probably transport some less critical over more critical? Possibly, however, we haven't triaged everybody yet. Now, I don't wanna put greens in the back when I know I have yellows and reds, but we do have to start getting 'em off rather quickly.
Ron Otterbacher:
And the other thing is, once you get them off, it's one less concern that you have, so you can focus on the other things at hand. You know, you still don't know where the bad guy may have gone to, you've got all these people there, you've got the witnesses that are giving us active, actionable intelligence that may help us resolve this situation in totality, and then, you've got everyone else that were just kinda there and how can we get them out of there, you know? So it allows us to focus on more... Or less things than if we had the injured people still there and have to worry about providing security for the AEP, and, you know, it just... The focus is better once you've got that problem out of the way.
Chad Lake:
Bill, like you said too, even in the back of the transport, if I have the resources and I can throw a couple more fire EMS back there to treat a little bit more, I can maybe load two reds and I have two medics that are providing care for those two, as long as I have the resources there, 'cause obviously, we want them to arrive alive, that's important to do too, and that's, you know, communicating that through your triage and your transport.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, and that's, I think, one of the great difficulties for fire EMS, is when you're into those circumstances, those... That idea of trying to get your load... The severity of the injured balanced for the resource that's available in the back of the rig to take care of them during the transport, and that can become a little dicey, especially if you've got somebody that has never done that before or hasn't really had to think that through, the tendency to just, "Well, throw 'em on the rig and get 'em out of here, throw 'em on the rig and get 'em out of here," that doesn't really do a whole lot of good if we didn't get the bleeding controlled, and, you know, the poor medic in the back has got three critical patients with bleeding and it just... You can't cycle fast enough.
So all right, let me take us on a tangent then in terms of dealing with the uninjured, now, we've been largely focused... And this came up as a result of talking about outdoor venues, but what about the indoor venues? One of the things that I see often in training is this tendency to want to move the uninjured out of the building, to get 'em out of the building, like, the whole building is bad, what should that look like and what are some of the things that go into consideration when you have an attack at...? Let's say it's an attack at a courthouse, you know, and there's a whole bunch of people that were in that building, you know, some of which you've seen in the hallway, some of which are in the area where the attack occurred, and some of which are in rooms you haven't even gotten to, how do you manage the uninjured then?
Ron Otterbacher:
Where can I provide the most security? You know, obviously, if I go to an... If I take it from the inside to outside, you know, now, I have a lot broader responsibility that I can't account for, at least if I take him into a room and I've cleared that room, at least I know that room's cleared, and if I can cover the entrances to that room, I've got a more secure area than I would if I took 'em outside, or if I left them in the hallways, or anything like that, I may have to have, depending on the number of people, a number of rooms that are secured, but again, we're looking at what we can provide the most security from, and then... Or for, and then, trying to gather whatever intelligence we can from all those people to determine where our threats may be coming from, or where the bad guy went to, or anything like that, again, we're going after the active threat, but in this situation that you described, what are we doing with all these people? I don't wanna take 'em outside, I wouldn't take 'em outside at all.
Billy Perry:
No, that's an easy day, you cover 'em from the three things, the elements, gunfire and the media, so you've got 'em secured there, it doesn't take much to keep them secure, and then, in the other rooms where you are, you set up... Oh, in every room it's SIM, keeping it back... Simple, keeping it back to basics, "Security, Immediate Action Plan, and Medical," we set up security, if something happens, who's going? And then, we start doing medical, and... Nothing changes, just advanced is the basics mastered.
Bill Godfrey:
So it's kinda like a casualty collection point minus the casualties and the RTFs, but it's a room you guys grab, clear and secure, and then, start holding... Use it as a holding area?
Billy Perry:
Right.
Chad Lake:
Yeah, wouldn't it be also...? The way to explain to the survivors of the uninjured is being pretty direct, like, "I need you to stay here," this is the safest place for you right now, 'cause..."
Bill Godfrey:
"You're gonna be here with Fred."
Ron Otterbacher:
With our advanced medical skills, we forget the priority and that's psychological first aid, and even though they're not injured, we're still providing psychological first aid by trying to talk them down and trying to calm the situation, and, you know, we all think about our advanced skills, but oftentimes, we forget that one little part that, you know, "Hey, we need to do what we can," no, they haven't been shot, but have they been injured? Yeah, they probably have because they watched everyone else get shot, so those are all things that we need to consider.
Billy Perry:
And we don't keep 'em in the room with a dead suspect, and we don't keep 'em in the room with the...
Bill Godfrey:
With the injured.
Billy Perry:
A bunch of injured people.
Bill Godfrey:
You know, that was where I was gonna take kinda my next question and talking point, you know, I've seen this so often in training where the law enforcement officers... You know, we've got the casualties into a casualty collection point, rescue task forces are in good shape, and next thing we know, all of the uninjured are being brought into the casualty collection point, and it's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, time out, you know, we've barely got enough room in here to begin with, this is not the place for them," Chad, have you seen that too?
Chad Lake:
I have, 'cause it's a good area, you know, sometimes, a big good secure area where it's like, "Hey, let's..." And it's one area, so it's easier to secure one than maybe two or three, but again, you're bringing uninjured that already... You know, like Ron said, that already been somewhat traumatized, and now, you're coming into where there's many injured, and what are they gonna see there too? You can't tell 'em, "Hey, I need everybody to come in here, and then, put your nose against the wall and don't look over there," 'cause they're all gonna look, you don't wanna further that trauma.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, do you think that's something that's on the minds of most line police officers when they're going through...? You know, they're... The rescue operation's still going on, but it's adequately staffed, there's people doing that, and you've got officers that are gonna begin to push out that inner perimeter and start opening doors and clearing rooms.
Billy Perry:
I think it depends on the agency.
Bill Godfrey:
Tell me more.
Billy Perry:
I think, like, our agency was very focused on that, truthfully, and I'm proud of that and thankful for it, when I first started training, I had one of the instructors say, "They can get counseling later on, I don't care about that," I'm like, "That's horrible, I mean, I don't wanna exacerbate a problem, you know, I'm all about taking down the bad guy, but I don't wanna exacerbate the problem," and like Chad's saying, I'm not gonna put somebody who is a survivor, put your nose against the wall 'cause again, their day has been horrible, you know, I wanna make it better, and our department actually has moved into a more compassionate level of that, now, are you gonna have people that don't? Obviously, you know, and they're operating on the Peter principle as well, you know, the officer that's there responding, I mean, he's overwhelmed, or she, and they're doing the best they can, but it's not gonna be perfect, but I think it is something that we've strived to make people aware of.
Ron Otterbacher:
And it's something we should cover in training,
Billy Perry:
100%. Repeatedly.
Ron Otterbacher:
Because it is kind of biblical, they know not what they're doing. A lot of times in these situations, they've never had a situation like this whatsoever, so they're trying to get everyone in... Sequestered in one area so they can go take care of everything else that's going on, and they don't even consider those things and whose fault is it? It's ours as leadership because we haven't taken the time before this incident to talk about this, even if it's in a briefing, you know, shift briefing before you start, "Hey, if this happens, you know, remember, we wanna sequester the witnesses and survivors away from the injured survivors and everything else," so at least they've got an idea, "Oh, yeah, Sarge talked about this," we don't do that, and that's something we need to improve on.
Billy Perry:
And we were working on that before I left 'cause I am retired now, thank goodness, but before I left, you know, they were working... Making people very aware of that and looking forward in other arenas.
Bill Godfrey:
And I do kinda feel like it is a training gap on the law enforcement side at the... A lot of the younger folks that are coming in and almost feel like, "Hey, you know, guys, if the building's not on fire or about to explode, they're safer inside than they are outside, you know, grab a room, secure it and hold 'em in there, and it shouldn't be the room with the injured, they've already had a bad enough day..."
Billy Perry:
Or the bad guy.
Bill Godfrey:
"If you do have uninjured in the room with the injured, move 'em out of that room, they don't need to be there," yeah, and certainly not with the bad guy, and I do feel like that's a bit of a training gap that we ought to pay a little bit more attention to.
Chad Lake:
We can practice that on everyday calls, we do that... We run a simple medical call, I won't say simple, but, you know, it could be cardiac arrest, and we're so focused on the patient, what's happening to the family? Has anybody talked to the family? Auto accidents with children, we're so focused and moth to that flame on that injured, we forget about the uninjured, you know? So we need to focus on that, and I... In my department, I personally talk to the family members, they'll say, "Yeah, we're taking 'em to the hospital," I was like, "No, let's stay a little bit after while the transport unit left and let's talk to them a little bit to make them feel a little bit more comfortable," and it's gonna help tremendously. You can do that on everyday calls, not just the big calls.
Ron Otterbacher:
And again...
Billy Perry:
That's awesome.
Ron Otterbacher:
As we build relationships, we talk to our brothers and sisters at the fire department and everything else, while they're busy working that code, we as law enforcement that are on the scene, instead of giving the stare of life, we could be the ones that are talking to 'em, trying to explain to them what's gonna happen and everything, it's that relationship we've built, you know, it's their job to help us, they see we're busy, they're gonna help us, and if we see they're busy, we're gonna help them, but not be fearful of taking that step to go in and talk to the family, they don't have anyone... They're... You know, they got everyone they got working this code, someone needs to talk to 'em, let me go over and talk to 'em, but we gotta train.
Ron Otterbacher:
Yeah, and I think the other thing that I wanna add here before we close this one out is the reason that we, through this entire podcast, have called 'em survivors. You know, we became aware, ironically, educated by two young ladies who were survivors of two different active shooter events, that the word victim is harmful, and that psychologically, the recovery requires the person that was subjected to this violence to get over seeing themselves as a helpless victim and rather seeing themselves of, "I survived that," you know, "I'm a survivor, yes, that thing happened to me and it was horrible, but I survived it and I'm moving forward with my life," and so, you know, it sounds... I understand that it sounds silly, but calling people by a name that's helpful instead of harmful is actually, in my eyes, a pretty big deal.
Billy Perry:
Huge deal.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, I think so, and then, the other thing, and I think we'll leave this for another podcast, is, you know, we've talked about that immediate corralling of the uninjured, and how you're dealing with them in the building that was under attack, what we didn't go into, of course, was how are we gonna handle family assistance, reunification, you know, all of those kinds of things? And that's a different topic for another day, but all of that has to be considered as well when you're dealing with the uninjured survivors.
Well gentlemen, thank you very much for discussing this and staying on to do another one back-to-back, I appreciate it, thank you to our producer, Karla Torres, and if you have any questions about this or any specific challenges in your agency that you'd like some assistance with, please feel free to give us a call in the office or send us an email, info@c3pathways.com.
Thank you to our producer, Karla Torres, I think I said that twice, she's nodding at me, so yes, I said that twice, until next time, stay safe.