Marina Yardaeva It is impossible to be truly prepared for an emergency 03/26/2024, 10:19

After the terrorist attack in Moscow, many people remembered Beslan. With fear. For fear of repetition. For many, children are the real pain point. In many cities, parents demand that schools switch to distance education. Educational institution managements report that security will be increased during the holiday period. Teachers are waiting for new anti-terror drills. Everyone is very worried. Everyone really wants to understand how prepared children’s institutions are today for various emergencies.

People succumb to doubts. Will adults be able to help children in kindergartens, schools, youth centers if something happens? (child and youth centers) ? After all, even in the terrorist attack on Crocus, children were almost injured en masse.

Public anger fell on the Dance Sports Federation. Competitions were held in the building next to the concert hall captured by terrorists. More than 1,500 young dancers from all over the country came to the tournament. Eyewitnesses claim that the organizers of the championship refused to evacuate the children after the gunfire.

Luckily no one was hurt. The organizers even seemed able to logically explain their behavior. They say they are trying to prevent panic and crushing. We coordinated actions with the rescue service – they were advised to close the doors. When it was understood that there was a fire somewhere nearby, evacuation began. True, it took quite a long time – about 20 minutes. Large groups were confused and ran into the corridors, unable to find a way out. Although everything ended well overall, an aftertaste remained.

Then news came from Yekaterinburg. An urgent inspection was carried out in schools and kindergartens to protect against terrorist attacks, and it was revealed that only nine out of 675 institutions met all security requirements. Only 49% of schools and 52% of kindergartens have a security alarm system, while 75% of schools and 66.9% of kindergartens have an evacuation control system. I don’t want to force the issue, but the question begs itself. How can we accept this fact?

And there is another question. Buildings are not ready for an emergency, but what about the people? How capable are they of facing danger?

How skilled are they at guiding children? Have the staff of educational institutions received any training for such horrific cases?

As a teacher in a regular district school, I can give some assurance to the public on this issue: Various drills are held regularly in the school. Evacuation routes during fire and barricade rules during shooting have already been memorized.

Children also learned a long time ago that if we are “burning”, we throw away everything, including our phones, which we put in a special box before class. No, we won’t get into the wardrobe either. What if it’s minus five outside? Practice shows that everyone managed to leave the school in three minutes.

But this is during training. And according to the most simplified scenario, without collapsed structures, dense smoke and injured people needing first aid. Of course, no one knows how this will happen during a real emergency, God forbid.

In an extreme situation, people behave very differently: someone is stunned, someone rushes, gets lost among three pines, someone faints, someone next to the fallen one remembers with horror that he took a first aid course from a distance, and at the final test I stupidly copied and pasted all the answers. And someone, on the contrary, somehow gets together wonderfully, does everything clearly, harmoniously and also helps others. This last one is incredibly encouraging.

I always think of the Crocus cloakroom attendants who bravely and calmly took young people running away from a dead end and escorted them to the emergency exit. Men are, of course, real heroes. Their self-control is amazing.

We know examples of heroism of teachers. A teacher was stabbed 15 times while protecting children from an attacker during the massacre at a Perm school. A teacher who was protecting his students died in the armed attack in Kazan. All of this, of course, fosters faith in humanity. It is extremely sad that this belief sometimes requires such sacrifices.

However, success is such a thing that you cannot demand it from people. No one knows how to act during a tragedy until they find themselves at the epicenter of the tragedy.

And I don’t want anyone there. Never to anyone. For this reason, I cannot speak confidently about whether education workers are ready for emergencies. Moreover, no one is really ready for this. But still, terrorist attacks, assaults and fires are still extraordinary events. Thank God, these are not everyday events for us. Although thoughts of terrible things sometimes try to completely take over our consciousness.

Yes, now it will be worrying for a long time. Yes, there will probably be new teachings and unplanned, unscheduled life safety lessons in schools. And perhaps this will bother many parents even more. I remember three or four years ago, due to inaccurate reports about mining, my children returned from school in winter, in light shoes and without a backpack, almost every week for the entire term. This was also an exercise of sorts, but it wasn’t planned.

This caused anger in many people at the time; parents demanded that those responsible quickly identify malicious spammers and provide conditions for their children’s normal learning. I also remember feeling righteous anger at the time. And now I am grateful even to those who are not terrorists; children received additional education.

And now, we actually have no choice but to accept the truth as calmly as possible. There is evil.

Thank goodness it’s not total, it’s even pretty common if you try to measure it using statistical tools. But he’s still trying to prove himself. It is naive to try to isolate yourself from this situation by locking yourself at home, removing your children from school altogether, or thinking that only special services should take care of our security.

Of course, you need to ask the services because this is not the case when half of the schools do not even have the alarm system working. However, children should be explained that anything can happen in life and that learning how to behave in an incomprehensible situation is not only normal, but also necessary. For his own sake. For the good of us all.

The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the position of the editors.