Parkland First Responder Says He Was Given Stand Down Order: ‘I Could Have Saved Lives’

A Parkland first responder claims he was told to stand down during crucial moments following the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, hypothesizing that he “could have saved lives” if he were allowed inside the building at that time.

The man, described as a “seasoned emergency medical responder” by WSVN Miami News 7 reporter Brian Entin who interviewed him Saturday night, asked to remain anonymous in fear that he might be fired for speaking out.

“Everything I was trained on mass casualty events says they did the wrong thing,” the first responder said. “You don’t wait for the scene to be cleared. You go in immediately armed. Retrieve the victims. You can’t leave the victims laying there.”

The first responder said he was asking officials to go inside the school, but was told not to enter:

We were asking to go in. Asking the scene commander to go in. Why are we all standing around? Why are we not having patients to treat? Why are we not going into the building and retrieving these kids? The response every time was law enforcement did not clear the scene and would not allow medical personnel in.

“I would hypothesize I could have saved lives. I can’t say for sure,” he said, adding, “I would have risked my life to go in. I was eager to.”

The first responder said he felt “frustrated the entire time I was there.”

“Rapid evacuation of the wounded. All they had to do was drag them out of the building. And we could have started medical care.”

He said that though authorities might have made a decision they thought was correct at the time, he disagrees. “I don’t think it was the right one,” he said. “They should have been more aggressive about getting the victims out.”

“Can’t say for sure if the people were dead inside or if they could have helped,” he added.

On Monday night, Fox News host Laura Ingraham revealed in an exclusive that officers were told to stand down because they were not wearing body cameras.

“Broward County sheriff’s deputies were supposedly told not to enter Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School unless they had body cameras on, which they did not have,” reported The Daily Wire. “Ingraham also revealed that police ‘lost radio transmissions’ during the shooting, which also happened at the mass shooting at Fort Lauderdale airport shooting last year, which is also in Broward County.”

According to a CNN report, four armed Broward County Deputies remained outside of the school as children were being murdered.