The Harlan County Sheriffs Office and Harlan EMS performed a mock invasion Tuesday at Harlan County High School.

Harlan County High School principal Bob Howard said holding this sort of drill is important because in today’s society you must be ready for everything.

“We’ve always got to be on the lookout for any situation,” said Howard. “One of the things we really appreciated from day one is... the sheriffs office here under Marvin Lipfird has been very cooperative in making sure this is a safe school. I think that was one of the biggest things that the community was concerned about was the safety of the school — the fact it was a larger school that was going to be incorporating the entire county and a larger number of students.”

The mock invasion was designed to help train the sheriff’s officers and the tactical EMS team about what might happen and how to prepare for a situation like Colombine.

Lipfird said the tactical EMS unit has been in place now for three years and consists of four members from Harlan EMS.

Lipfird said his office and the tactical EMS unit will begin practicing once a month to learn the unit’s strengths and see what needs to be improved.

“We would much rather come up here and spend some time practicing, learn our mistakes, our weaknesses so to speak. It’s easier to figure all of this out before we end up in a major situation and figure it out then,” said Lipfird.

He said the tactical EMS team will participate in the drills each month with the sheriff’s office, including going to the shooting range since each member of the team is a special deputy.

“We are fortunate in this county to have some forward thinking educators on the county and city level who understand we are all on the same team and that we all need to train together, work together, exist together and provide a safe environment for our children together,” said Lipfird. “I’m just grateful they (HCHS) have allowed us the opportunity to come up here and train. I’m very grateful for D.W. Baker for providing us with medics.”

Baker said working as part of the tactical EMS unit was a completely different side of the emergency medical services than what the unit is use to.

“It gives us an opportunity to work hand-in-hand with the sheriff’s office or any local police agency,” Baker said. “We now understand more of what they are doing and why they are doing it and it gives us the ability to render quicker care to someone injured at the scene.”

Harlan County Safe Schools Coordinator Jimmy Middleton said the sheriff’s office and the school system have been working together to be very proactive in all of the schools.