Montreal Massacre lessons paid off: emergency workers
Lessons learned from the 1989 Ãcole Polytechnique massacre helped police and emergency workers save lives when a man began shooting atanother Montreal college this week, officials say.
Montreal police Chief Yvan Delorme said that when shots rang out inside the Ãcole Polytechnique 17 years ago, emergency personnel "had a perimeter outside and they waited. No one went inside."
In what became known as the Montreal Massacre, gunman Marc Lépine went through three floors of the school andhad killed 14young female students by the time police determined they could safely enter the building. Lépine killed himself.
Officers entered building just after gunman
But when history seemed to repeat itself Wednesday at Dawson College in downtown Montreal, officers raced into the building only a few minutes after the gunman.
The shooter, Kimveer Gill, 25, died of a self-inflicted shot to the head. He was also hit by a bullet from police.
"This time it was very efficient, very proactive, so I think the police force did a very good job," the police chief said.
One business student, 18-year-old Anastasia DeSousa, died in the attack and another 19 people were wounded.
Police believe the death toll could have been higher if Gill had been allowed to roam the building for a longer time.
"With new training, they go after the suspect, and they did a very good job to go after him," said Delorme.
Medics also responded faster
André Champagne, a spokesman with Urgences Santé, the Montreal ambulance service, agreed that improvements in operating procedures helped prevent the Dawson College tragedy from being worse.
"We have developed over the last years very good collaboration with the Montreal police department," he said. "It paid off."
After years of simulations and planning, Champagne said, "We were able to put it together on a live scene, and things went very, very well.⦠Our medics were able to go in faster, take patients out faster and transport them more rapidly to the hospital."