Reacting to an incident at Canterbury Park is a bit different than going to a home.
“There are a lot more cogs in our system,” said Sean Corrigan, Security and Emergency Medical Services Director at Canterbury Park.
Police and fire personnel from the city of Shakopee, as well as Allina ambulance, were at Canterbury Park on Monday, April 23 for a joint training exercise with track officials. The idea was to help familiarize first responders with the facility and potentially head off any issues should a real emergency occur during the live racing season, Corrigan said.
“It minimizes any mistakes in the real world when we have a legitimate incident,” he said.
Having police, fire and ambulance together for training at Canterbury Park is “relatively rare,” Corrigan said. It was beneficial to have the groups practice with Canterbury’s own response team so “everybody knows what to do and how to pull it off,” he said.
The crews went through three scenarios:
- An individual jockey down on the track
- Multiple riders down on the track
- A patron going into cardiac arrest
With Canterbury Park being such a large facility, and having new people in place both at the track and in local agencies, the training was a good opportunity to refine procedures, figure out how to delegate resources and prepare in case of a real emergency, Corrigan said.
Canterbury Park typically teams with local officials once a year for a training session, but regularly runs its own exercises with on-site personnel, Corrigan said.
