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Zombies teach safety, disaster preparedness at Notre Dame event

A zombified South Bend Police Sgt. Jarveair Bourn on Thursday lets Notre Dame student Joseph Truluck try to accurately shoot a toy gun while wearing blurred goggles, simulating one's reduced senses during intoxication.
Jeff Parrott/WVPE
A zombified South Bend Police Sgt. Jarveair Bourn on Thursday lets Notre Dame student Joseph Truluck try to accurately shoot a toy gun while wearing blurred goggles, simulating one's reduced senses during intoxication.

Zombies were spotted outside Notre Dame Stadium Thursday. Fortunately they meant no harm. Quite the opposite, in fact.

The world can be a scary place these days. Maybe even scarier than zombies. That could be especially true in the event of a disaster, natural or otherwise, and you’re a young adult living far from home.

For the second straight year, Notre Dame campus safety officials on Thursday held a Zombie Preparedness Festival outside the stadium. The event uses the premise of a zombie apocalypse to highlight issues related to emergency preparedness and safety, with information booths and demonstrations for students, faculty and staff.

Tracy Skibins, Notre Dame’s senior director of emergency management, global safety and security, says tables give helpful tips on "how to put out a fire with a fire extinguisher, how to prepare meals when you only have a few canned goods in your cabinet, how to become CPR-certified, how emergency professionals use drones in emergency situations to help identify threats or find missing victims."

Students could get a free t-shirt if they visited enough tables.

Chemical engineering senior Kaitlyn Leshak admitted she came for the free taco truck. More seriously, she said she appreciates such events.

"I feel like they do a good job preparing us at Notre Dame for these things," Leshak said. "We have to do a lot of safety trainings, which is important, and they have events like this and they lure us in with food, but then everyone pays attention, which is always good."

Parrott, a longtime public radio fan, comes to WVPE with about 25 years of journalism experience at newspapers in Indiana and Michigan, including 13 years at The South Bend Tribune. He and Kristi live in Granger and have two children currently attending Indiana University in Bloomington. In his free time he enjoys fixing up their home, following his favorite college and professional sports teams, and watching TV (yes that's an acceptable hobby).