Letter to the Editor: First Responders Should Get What They Need to Protect Us
Greetings to our honored members of our community!
The Madison County Sheriff's Office and Godfrey Fire Protection District recently trained together on April 19th to simulate several active shooter incidents at Alton High School. The drill included a collection of scenarios, which were conducted by the Southern Illinois Law Enforcement Commission, an agency that provides training for officers throughout the region.
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During the drills active shooters roamed the halls while deputies entered and cleared rooms and worked to provide escorts to firefighters making their way towards the injured parties. This newer methodology of Fire, EMS and police all working together as one team in the “warm zone” is referred to as a RESCUE TASK FORCE, with the goal of getting to critically injured victims as soon as possible, assessing them, providing critical on scene treatment and then extrication to a more “secure” causality collection point to better improve odds of survival. This new concept was created after authorities realized (following several mass shooting events) that lives are being unnecessarily lost while waiting long periods of time for medical assistance while fire/EMS companies were held in staging areas to be brought in later by police (after the incident was resolved) and the scene deemed “secure”.
In a “warm zone”, the entire scale of the situation is unknown to law enforcement, so while one suspect may be barricaded, pinned in or dispatched, other shooters or makeshift bombs (known as secondary devices) could potentially be in place, making the scene still dangerous for first responders attempting to provide medical assistance.
With this new model of fire/EMS now actively going with police into the warm zones together, it is extremely important for us to properly equip them all with the tools they need to survive - especially in a community like ours, rich with plenty of “target hazards” like churches, sports venues, high schools or community colleges. While police officers, sheriffs’ deputies and most other fire departments are already equipped with protective ballistic vests for these scenarios, sadly the Godfrey Fire Protection District is currently not, and that needs to change. Firefighting (just like police work) is already an inherently dangerous occupation, we know that firefighters readily assume risk to go into burning buildings and are provided protective gear (turnout gear, helmet, SCBA, etc.) in order to be successful in their mission and go home safely to their families.
With firefighter’s job descriptions constantly expanding, we should now consider ballistic vests as a critical item that needs to be added to their inventory. We know that taxes are stretched as far as they can go, fire district’s taxes are capped and local budgets even tighter, so I’m placing a “call to action” to our community, in an attempt to reach out to its businesses, our residents, our churches, our schools (public and private) and our community college who are all key stakeholders in this matter to try to help us generate the funds necessary to purchase these key protective vests for the Godfrey Fire Protection District. I am personally pledging $500.00 to the cause and I encourage everyone to join me. Donations/checks should be made out to the Godfrey Fire Protection District (with “ballistic vest fund” written in the “Memo line”) and should be sent to the Godfrey Fire Protection District - Station #1, 6011 Godfrey Road, Godfrey, IL. 62035 100% of the funds generated will go directly towards the purchase of the ballistic vests and helmets for the firefighters.
We ask a LOT of our first responders, I believe we owe it to them to give them everything they need to protect us, not just for their sake -so they can go home to their families, but also the sake of our children, . . .so THEY can come home to us.
Children are our greatest resource, we ALL have a stake in this – now more than ever.
Christopher, J. Sichra
Owner, Sichra Consultation Services L.L.C. - Godfrey
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