Blue Mountain Health System's Gnaden Huetten and Palmerton campuses are participating in an active shooter drill to ensure their procedures will help keep employees and patients safe if an emergency of this magnitude really happened.

The health system's Emergency Response Team hosted the drill in conjunction with the Carbon County Emergency Management Agency and Lehighton Police Department.A call for a gunman inside the hospital came in just after 8 a.m. The campus then went into lockdown mode. Multiple departments on the ground floor were seen evacuating the building as part of the drill.Joe Guardiani, director of Fund Development and Government Relations and HERT coordinator, said the shooter came through the lobby, made his way down the hallway and back to pharmacy area, where negotiations with police and additional gunfire occurred."Our goal (for the drill) was to evaluate our staff's abilities to put those procedures in place during, God forbid, a horrific thing like this would happen," he said, noting that the all clear at Gnaden Huetten was given just after 9 a.m.According to the press release sent out by the health system, "This Active Shooter drill will involve a cross section of health care professionals in a realistic scenario that includes clinical areas of the hospital that are regularly accessed by the general public on a daily basis. The goal of this drill will be to provide participants with an opportunity to rehearse their 'Run, Hide, Fight' plan strategies outlined in the health system's emergency operations manual and to experience firsthand the initial interaction with an armed assailant as well with law enforcement officers as they arrive on scene."Violence in health care settings is on the rise," the release said. "The BMHS HERT team, whose responsibility it is to prepare staff for all types of emergency situations, will move beyond the typical active shooter table top exercise on June 20 to offer the staff an opportunity to actively participate in an active shooter scenario involving various outpatient departments of the hospital. Participants will collaborate with the HERT team, law enforcement and emergency management experts to facilitate the implementation of its local plan for survival and post-event recovery."The drill will continue to the health system's Palmerton campus, which has been set up as the patient surge area for the event.The drill is expected to conclude at the Palmerton campus by approximately noon.