PRESS RELEASE

WHITE COUNTY, Ga. — First Responders from White County, along with other agencies, completed a rigorous three-day training course in Tactical Emergency Casualty Care.  This training was held April 19 through April 21 at the Mountain Education Charter High School.

The Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (TECC) program is based on the principles of Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) and meets the guidelines established by the Committee on Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (Co-TECC). The course teaches civilian tactical EMS; any EMS practitioner called upon to respond to a mass casualty or active shooter event.

TECC focuses on the medicine during these phases of care and provides guidelines for managing trauma in the civilian tactical or hazardous environment. While TECC has a tactical slant, it takes an all-hazards approach to providing care outside the normal operating conditions of most EMS agencies.

“After action reports from several exercises conducted in White County using scenarios involving mass casualty and active shooters, we determined a need for this tactical type training” stated David Murphy, Director of Public Safety.

“We are proud of our team, and these individuals for achieving this valuable certification for our community and those they serve”.

Funding from Health and Human Services, the Assistant Secretary of Preparedness and Response, awards the State of Georgia Department of Public Health, Healthcare Protection Program to allow regional coalitions to conduct gap analysis and focus training, equipment and plans.

Each year, the Georgia Mountains Healthcare Coalition addresses gaps from real world events or exercises to determine training that would benefit the first responders, healthcare facilities to ensure that when the need arises, we can effectively respond to the events that impact our citizens.

Through this processes, the Tactical Emergency Care Course was funded through that stream at no cost to the organization or individuals. With such prevalent attention surrounding active threats and shootings across the nation, we are fortunate to continue to train out first responders of law enforcement, EMS and fire services locally with this life saving course. This was the 5^th course funded for our region by the Georgia Mountains Healthcare Coalition.

This course included participants from White County Fire Services, Cleveland City Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, University of North GA Police, Hall County Sheriff’s Office, and NGHS Security.

*Pictures provided by WC Office of Public Safety