Paramedics, police, and the Canadian Armed Forces’ Grey and Simcoe Foresters conducted a simulated summit exercise at the armoury in Barrie.
Army reservists and emergency responders took part in exercise ‘Battleaxe Sever’ on the weekend of November 21-23. It simulated a summit exercise in Barrie that juggled a VIP, reporters, perimeter security, vehicle checkpoints and a simulated attack on the armoury.
Grey and Simcoe Foresters Officer Commanding B Company Captain Vishnu Persaud says, “Being here in the city of Barrie itself, we control the ground that we are on, which is National Defence property but we have to work with all of our stakeholder partners because we are part of the community as well.”
He notes the Barrie Police Service is in charge of the safety and security of the community as a whole, and it’s important to work with them.
Persaud says, “The intent is just to support our local partners in creating a secure environment to allow a very important meeting to take place.”
He explains, “It’s actually training our soldiers for real life situations that either in domestic operations or deployed operations whereby, in order for us to do the job to support Canadians or to support others, we need to make sure that we’re safe, and those around us that need to be protected are safe as well.”
The armoury was more cordoned off than usual that weekend for the exercise with razor wire just inside the gates and spikes that would puncture the tires of any hypothetical vehicles that went too far beyond the simulated checkpoint.
As soldiers were trained in checking a vehicle at the entrance, a Barrie police drone hovered above, recording the exercise for later review.
The exercise also simulated an improvised explosive device (IED) attack. It saw a number of soldiers pretend to have specific injuries to be addressed by responders.
Other soldiers formed a quick reaction force — the first few to respond after the pretend explosion to triage the injured, determining who needed to be treated first.
Simcoe County Paramedics responded with their ambulances and simulated their response, working with police and soldiers. Among them were Tactical Emergency Medical Services – specialized paramedics who are trained to respond to potentially dangerous situations.
Private Tyler Funston is a 16 year old member of the Grey and Simcoe Foresters who attends Owen Sound District Secondary School. He tells Bayshore Broadcasting News, he was happy to make the trip back to Barrie, seeing the other half of the Grey and Simcoe Foresters reserve regiment, which is made up of reservists who train in Owen Sound (A Company) and Barrie (B Company), and live all around Grey, Bruce and Simcoe counties.
“My infantry training, I did a lot of it with the younger guys and it’s really good to see them again,” says Funston, who says he is the only current OSDSS student in the reserve regiment.
He adds, “I like that it’s a community,” noting he has made some good friends in the regiment. The rest of the time, he’s doing what his peers are doing, “Math class, gym class, English, everything normal.”
Sixteen is the minimum age to join the Canadian Armed Forces (with parental consent).
Cots were set up in the armoury for the weekend exercise that saw around 40 reservists from Owen Sound and Barrie take part.
Meanwhile, Capt. Persaud says for the next while, they’ll be prepping for cold weather exercises, noting, “We do go often, to the Arctic because that is one of our tasks with the Arctic Response Company Group. In addition to this exercise, in upcoming weekends we’ll be training for our next exercises which will be going up into Northern Ontario to participate in training and cold weather operations.”
Photo by Claire McCormack
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