Tactical EMS

[ALSfirefighter]

How many of you out there have or are involved with a tactical EMS team. Or provide a Medic to your SWAT team? I'm am not getting very far with addressing the issue here where I am. I'm in a dept. where we have several of our medics, like me, who are former Police Officers, or Military veterans with tactical training. I just think its better to have some training, and some body armor available. Any info you have I would appreciate. Also, I'm not bringing this up to have the "we shouldn't even be close argument." If that is your dept. SOG, I respect that. We also under normal conditions await PD and scene security, but what happens if your child is lying in a classroom where complete scene securtity could take hours. To me there are certain situations like one of our is down, where it would come into play.

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The above is my opinion only and doesn't reflect that of any dept./agency I work for, deal with, or am a member of. http://www.firehouse.com/forums/biggrin.gif

[Adler]

This is all second hand information, so if I am wrong on one of these accounts, I apologize. I am a medic (ex-military, Crim. Just. degrees, police background) trying to see some action, so I try to talk to and get to know as many Law Enforcement agents around here and get my foot in the door.

Around here, I know they try to have 1 medic per SERT Team Squad. Each squad consists of 4-6 Officers. The Medic stays back until the area is cleared. But, they are allowed to go in and have all of the necessary training that everyone else goes through. Most of the members are Ex-Marines, Army. But there are a few "Greenhorns". Since we have a lot of rural areas in Iowa some of the members include: State Patrol, Police and Sheriff Deputies. We also have INS, FBI and US Marshal agents around here to help if we really need them, or if they need us. But, I think we all know how the government's "top dogs" like to have outsiders involved in their intricate plans, and details (Dade-County, FL).

Hope this helps a little. I think that it would be a serious mistake not to have a medic on a team with full precautions taken.

[PghEMTmac]

I think that you should start at the top, from thofficer safety issue (if you can show the department you could save them money, the chiefs always like it). Show information from the web about other Police department SWAT teams and how they work together some of the ones I can think of are Baldwin EMS ( near Pittsburgh) NYPD, Allegheny County SWAT Team. I'm sure there are many others.

[Looper]

Check out Cypress Creek EMS (www.CCEMS.com). They have a full blown tactical medic team and work with several federal, state and local police agencies in the southeast Texas area. They do carry weapons and have Reserve Peace Officer (police) certifications. They are conducting a Tactical Medic training course (7 day, 76-hr) next week, and I was finally able to talk my employer (Houston P.D.) into letting me go to it. Myself and several other officers are trying to get the dept to buy into the idea of police officers (not just SWAT) with advanced medical training.

[ffanjemt2]

In Pittsburgh,when a SWAT Detail is going to "go down", a Paramedic Unit, and a Fire Engine are dispatched to stage close to the area.
All of our units in our E.M.S. have ballistic vests for incidents such as these.

Every once in awhile, there is discussion of having a Tactical Medic with the appropriate training, on the SWAT Team. Currently there has been some discussion that the Police Officers who are former Paramedics with us,due to their transfer,take care of any pts.involved in these types of incidents. They would operate under "provisional command", provided that they remained a "Certified Paramedic" Of course this is just some scuttlebutt.This is a touchy UNION Issue for obvious reasons.We"ll see.

[Looper]

Well, I finally got done with the Tactical Medic class today. It was an excellent class, with instructors from FBI, U.S. Marshalls, ATF, Houston P.D. (SWAT, Bomb Squad), plus many other agencies. The class was set up to take a Medic and teach them some basic police tactics & emergency field medical techniques. The idea is to have the tactical medic prepared to take care of the team from "teeth to toes". Some of the classes were: Handcuffing and Prisoner searching; Land Navigation; Remote patient asessment; Tactical movement (urban & wilderness); Emergency dentistry; basic veterinary care (K-9); explosives & booby traps; Hazmat decon in the field; helicopter operations.

The final part of the course was a 14 hr field exercise during which each team (4-5 people) of students ran several scenarios which put all of the classroom lecture to practice. One of the scenarios invloved securing a large scene, locating and triaging 10 patients, conducting necessary immediate treatment and evacuating 7 by air medevac.

It was a great class and I would recommend it to anyone out there who is serious about the field of tactical EMS. If anyone wants more info, just send me an e-mail.