On February 14, 2008, less than 1 year after a senior at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) murdered 32 people and committed suicide, the campus community at Northern Illinois University (NIU), in DeKalb, Illinois, faced a similar horror. A former NIU graduate student walked onto the stage of a large lecture hall and began firing on startled students and faculty. The shooter, a 28-year old male, had a history of mental illness. He shot and killed 5 students and wounded 18, some critically. His suicide at the end of the brief attack brought the number of deaths to 6.

The building where the shooting occurred, Cole Hall, is centrally located in the interior of the campus and is directly across from a concentration of dormitories identified as Neptune East, West, Central, and North. Cole Hall contains two large lecture halls for large group classes.

All of the injured who were transported were taken to Kishwaukee Community Hospital, the only hospital nearby. Several of the most seriously injured were then transferred to five other hospitals in the region—four via helicopter and one via ground ambulance. A close examination of how the emergency medical and hospital services were carried out reveals that the right decisions and actions were taken during triage and treatment, lives were saved, and no one was hurt in the process of providing emergency medical services (EMS) to the victims, transporting them, or safeguarding the rest of the campus immediately after the murders.