Smith Lab Shadowing | Capstone: Visible Protection Emergency Response (Viper) Barrier

Shadowing

These pictures and videos were taken while observing the response of firefighters and police to a fire alarm in Smith Lab on OSU’s campus. The general sequence of events involved the firefighters pulling up next to the building, grabbing some commonly-used equipment from the truck, and walking into the building. A police officer walked up to the crowd of people gathered outside and asked them whether they knew why the fire alarm was going off before heading in after the firefighters. After a few minutes, all emergency workers reported out of the building and back to their vehicles before driving off.

Although there was almost no emergency action taken, there were a few useful takeaways from the impromptu shadowing experience. Firstly, it was helpful to see how the police and fire department interacted. While the firefighters were focused on the situation, the police officer was more focused on managing the people involved. Additionally, it was very helpful to see the way traffic interacted with the emergency vehicles once they had been parked. Most cars slowed down and uneasily drove by the vehicles, as if unsure of what to do and how to act. Many pedestrians walked directly by the vehicles with no regard for potentially getting in the way. Bikers often didn’t slow down at all, and simply sped by the scene. At one point, two bicyclists almost collided as they were coming around one of the fire trucks, blind to each other’s approach.

There was little opportunity to see how the emergency responders used equipment or interacted with a true emergency situation, but the opportunity afforded the chance to observe the interactions of civilians with the emergency vehicles at the scene of the emergency. There seems to be a potential area of improvement for keeping civilians out of the way of emergency crews and setting a better defined boundary for the scene of the incident.

Smith Lab Alarm Video 1 (18 sec)

Smith Lab Alarm Video 2 (29 sec)

Smith Lab Alarm Video 3 (1 min)

Smith Lab Alarm Video 4 (2.5 min)