If you see a large presence of emergency vehicles around Lambeau Field the week of June 15, don’t be alarmed. The Green Bay Packers and local public safety agencies are conducting routine emergency preparedness training all week.
This week, community members can expect to see an increased presence of first responders, fire trucks, police cruisers and medical vehicles in and around Lambeau Field.
“That’s just our crews out here practicing to make sure that their skills are top notch,” said Ben Peters, Green Bay Metro Fire Department life safety educator.
Training scenarios are designed to simulate incidents that could occur on gameday or throughout the year at Lambeau Field and other large buildings in the area. The training started June 15 with the fire department focusing on standpipe and high-rise operations, which generally refers to protocols for fighting fires in tall buildings, Peters said.
“High-rise training is important not only for Lambeau Field, but for any of the tall buildings within our response area,” Peters said. “It gives us a reminder, it gets us back into these structures to refamiliarize ourselves and also test our operations to make sure that they’re up to date and effective.”
Public safety crews will also participate in simulated EMS scenarios throughout the week. The trainings follow a Green Bay police exercise June 11 at the stadium, which the police department said prompted inaccurate claims on social media that there was an actual incident.
Assistant director of Packers’ security Ben Allen said it is “vitally important” to have public safety agencies practice emergency responses inside Lambeau, although those incidents happen “thankfully very infrequently.”
“We want them to know our space, we want them to know how to attack issues that may happen in here,” Allen said. “It’s also very important for them to know routes from behind the scenes to special exception areas to the high priority areas. It’s everything from tours to actual scenario-based-training like we’re doing here this week.”
The relationship between the Packers and public safety agencies is a priority for keeping fans and the community safe, Allen said. “That’s really why we open the door and we schedule trainings” with every sector of emergency response, he said.
With new faces entering local agencies every year and changes to Lambeau’s infrastructure occurring over time, the trainings are scheduled annually to keep everyone up to date on the best protocols, Allen said.
For example, when a fire broke out in the stadium’s newest locker room in March, Lt. Shauna Walesh said crews quickly found the fire despite a lack of smoke and flames because “we are very familiar with the building.”
“The response was perfect, as it was designed,” Walesh said at the time.
Vivian Barrett is the public safety reporter for the Green Bay Press-Gazette. You can reach her at vmbarrett@usatodayco.com or (920) 431-8314.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Emergency response training scheduled this week at Lambeau Field
Reporting by Vivian Barrett, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
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By Vivian Barrett, Green Bay Press-Gazette | USA TODAY Network
