This article offers safety tips and best practices to prepare for a terrorist attack.
Currently the terrorist threat remains a real and serious phenomenon, difficult to foresee and sometimes complex to combat. An attack can occur at any time without warning and could cause serious damage to property and people.
Acts of terrorism differ in terms of scale and purpose. Some seek only to inflict superficial damage or cause moments of public distress, to attract the attention of the media and society, but others may have the intent to commit massacres with large acts. The attacks on the Twin Towers, the London Underground, the Tunisian Museum of the Bardo and the attack on the Bataclan in Paris, are just some of the examples of attacks with very high damage potential, which have the purpose of producing massacres, arousing fear and despair in the society. For these phenomena, in the hypotheses in which one is threatened by these acts, it is very important to follow the rules of conduct to prepare oneself for these situations of strong emergency.
What to do if a terrorist event occurs?
• Keep calm and be patient.
• If you are at the crime scene, follow the directions of the local emergency services, which probably have the complete picture of what is happening.
• Listen to the emergency messages of the media (radio, TV, PC, etc.).
• If the event occurs near you and there are no more dangers, check for injuries, injuries and deaths. Provide assistance and guarantee assistance for seriously injured individuals.
• In the event of a dynamite attack, if the event damages your home or workplace, check the damage with a flashlight. Except in the event of a fire, the effects of an explosion generally obscure the affected area. Avoid shouting so as not to inhale harmful dust and fumes. Do not light matches, candles or electrical switches. Check for fires, fire hazards and other hazards inside the affected room. Close any damaged appliances or machines. Smell the air to detect any gas leaks. If you smell gas or suspect a leak, close the main gas tap, open the windows and quickly exit the site of the attack.
• In case of biological threat, it will probably be confirmed by the media. If you suspect that you or a family member has been exposed, you should consult a doctor without risking the infection of other people.
• In the event of a chemical attack, if you think you are seeing a suspicious substance in your vicinity or you are starting to have trouble breathing or your eyes are watering or itchy, you may have been exposed to a harmful chemical. Move away as soon as possible and immediately inform the emergency services. If you are in a building, leave it immediately. The most important thing is to find clean air as quickly as possible.
• Keep your pets safe.
• In case of assault with firearms it is difficult to comply with a standard rule. In these circumstances immediately evaluate the direction of the threat and based on the event evaluate the following options, with the premise that they are not exhaustive choices:
1. Identify escape routes and move away from danger.
2. In some cases the terrorists shoot at a man's height, so if you can't escape, throw yourself to the ground to avoid their fire trajectories.
3. If you can escape the gaze of the attackers but you can't escape, try to hide yourself.
4. In case of assault in crowded places, with no escape opportunities and the terrorists have already caused the death of many individuals, pretend to be dead.
5. If the attackers do not have general control over the assaulted (eg unloaded or jammed weapons, large surveillance area, etc.) and are in a strong minority, but you have no escape routes, consider whether you can disarm the terrorists, possibly agreeing with the other threatened individuals.
• When the attack is over and when the danger is being removed, inform the emergency organs and your family members of your state of health. Then use the phone only in case of serious threat to life. In these cases, overloading telephone lines should be avoided to allow survivors of the attack to communicate with emergency numbers.
