How to Spot a Zombie

Earlier this month, the University of Florida posted a Zombie Attack Disaster Preparedness Simulation Exercise on its website to teach students and faculty how to survive in the event of a zombie apocalypse. The last two pages of the six-page document are devoted to the Infected Co-Worker Dispatch Form required of all UF students and staff who kill a co-worker suffering from ZBSD (or Zombie Behavior Spectrum Disorder). I have included the form below for your reference. The complete Zombie Attack Disaster plan was recently taken off of the UF website, but can be accessed here.

The UF plan includes some very helpful information. For example, how to spot a ZBSD sufferer--if a professor is "recently dead but moving again," makes "references to wanting to eat brains" or "killed and ate another employee," he is probably suffering from ZBSD. It also describes the tell-tale signs of the coming zombie outbreak. From the UF plan:

"Part 1 of this exercise will be to identify characteristics of a zombie outbreak that might precede official notification. These might include:

1. Disappearance of isolated citizens, initially in relatively remote areas;
2. Increasing numbers of gruesome unexplained deaths and disappearances, especially at night;
3. Identification of difficult to kill, flesh-eating perpetrators;
4. Recognition that the numbers of perpetrators is rapidly increasing and that those previously identified as victims have reappeared as perpetrators;
5. Increasing isolation of survivors;
6. Breakdown of peace-keeping and medical services;
7. Documentation of lots of strange moaning."

Earlier this week, UF's Theatre Strike Force staged a zombie attack drill to teach students how to respond in the event of the zombie apocalypse. The video is below, courtesy of The Independent Florida Alligator.

Happy Halloween!