How do you define success when people die?

It is a difficult word 'success' when applying it to incidents. Brigadier General Philippe Boutinaud struggled with the concept of calling the response to the incident 'successful' due to a large number of victims and injuries.

However, in relation to emergency management and applying the lessons from other experiences - they were well applied in this real life case. He made special mention of the work they had done with fellow colleagues after the London and Madrid bombings.

What did he learn from other terrorist attacks?

• Operations centre needs to be centrally located

• Medical coordination vital

• Crisis situational centre established

• Training with SWAT team important

• Planning different scenarios

• Training and exercises are vital

Today less than a thousand euros can buy enough equipment to carry out a tourism attack.

Background to emergency response plans

In 1978 the Paris Brigade developed the Red Plan which was developed for one incident with mass casualties which was put to use in the 1986 train crash.

In 2005, Red Plan Alpha was developed and included road closures procedures, police involvement and evacuation measures.

In 2006, the Yellow Plan (for CBRN operations) was developed to deal with decontamination incidents. They have just updated the yellow plan to alpha to cover multiple CBRN sites.

In 2008, the SINUS project was developed. This system makes it easier to identify victims via a bracelet with a barcode method. The SINUS project has proved to be a good resource for catching the number of casualties and is currently being rolled out nationwide.

In 2011 a new operational centre opened.

Context of November 13

There had been few terrorist attacks in France prior to 13 November incident. The social tension was under control and the day was mild. In the Stade de France there were high-level VIP’s and 72,000 spectators with a live broadcast. Brigadier General Philippe Boutinaud was inside and his initial thought at the noise was that it was a firecracker. As multiple attacks became evident, he went outside and discovered the body of the suicide bomber. In hindsight, the police believe a car accident on the nearby highway may have delayed the terrorists and that is why they were not inside the stadium.

At that stage, Brigadier General Philippe Boutinaud was aware of two waves of attacks and he was worried about a third strike.

He identified four stages of the incident ....

PHASE 1 – Reaction (21:19pm – 22:00pm) Initial confusion over incident sites due to their close proximity.

PHASE 2 – Recovery (22:00pm – 23:30pm)

PHASE 3 – Concentration of Efforts - such as evacuation of stadium and activating Red Plan Alpha at Bataclan (78 killed) – (23:30pm – 4:20am)

PHASE 4 – Back to normality (from operational view point) (4:21am – 8am)

By 4:21am, it was confirmed as 124 killed, 100 extreme injuries; 127 relative injuries.

In the initial phase, there was insecurity, uncertainty, scale (700 calls in 40 minutes) and resiliency.

Following this, he showed us footage from the incident.

Two parts stick in my mind.

Firstly, the audio from an 112 call from a lady who was inside the Bataclan and the sheer dread in her voice as the Operator begged her to act like she was dead and secondly, the firefighter who covered a lady’s eyes as he guided her out of the Bataclan. He covered her eyes as she was walking past and over bodies.

The final part of the blog will look at how they are moving forward and adapting the response and plans for the future.