Imagine first responders arriving on the scene of an all-too-common active shooter emergency. The area is chaotic, people are injured and trying to flee, and there is disorienting noise and smoke as police try to secure the area.
The first responder’s job is—as it always has been—to provide critical care to victims. However, responders are more and more often entering still-hostile environments where bullets may yet fly, or planted homemade bombs could explode at any time.
As we celebrate National EMS Week and say thanks to all emergency workers for the important work they do in our communities, we also need to address changing times. While all first responders—including emergency medical services, firefighters, paramedics and others—face increasingly dangerous scenarios, the system hasn’t kept up with their needs.
It’s critical that Congress act now to help expand access to body armor for first responders. Because of the lack of funding, low prioritization, not enough training and even misconceptions among first responders themselves, too many go unprotected into dangerous situations.
I see it on the streets of New York almost every day. From big news events, like a pipe bomb detonating in a Port Authority subway tunnel, to the “routine” domestic call that takes a dangerous turn when an armed and angry parent threatens to harm the people helping their child, EMS is on the new front line of emergency response.
Law enforcement and medical associations agree. The Hartford Consensus, created by the American College of Surgeons and FBI in 2012 to improve survivability in intentional mass casualty incidents, reached as one of its first conclusions that “it is no longer acceptable to stage and wait for casualties to be brought out to the perimeter.”
While the focus of the Consensus tackles improved training and coordinated responses (such as bleeding control to improve victim survival), one of its specific recommendations is the “use of ballistic vests” along with training for all first responders.
However, that takes funding. When I first began working in EMS in the late ‘80s, my commanding officer suggested I buy myself a bullet-resistant vest because there were none issued. While some departments around the country purchase personal protection equipment with their own budgets or by applying for the handful of grants that are out there, far too many emergency responders have to buy their own or go without.
According to an Armor NOW survey, about three-fourths of EMS respondents say their organization doesn’t currently provide body armor, and a similar percentage of firefighters say they don’t think their departments are properly prepared for high-threat situations.
Wherever there is a gun there is the potential for penetrating trauma, and we’re increasingly bringing first responders into those situations. With the use of new rescue task force models, first responders are being integrated into teams going into warm zones, or even hot zones, to save lives. Don’t get me wrong; we want to get in as quickly as possible and save as many people as possible. But we want to do it safely and with the right equipment and training.
A national push from the government to outfit first responders with the right protective gear and the proper training for effective use would show support and respect for first responders and the critical work they do. This issue goes beyond active shooter situations because the potential for a first responder to face a gun during seemingly everyday duties is just as real a threat.
One first step could be expanding the government’s Bulletproof Vest Partnership grant program to include all first responders. Currently, the program only applies to law enforcement agencies. The BVP has provided $430 million in federal funding for body armor specifically for law enforcement officers, giving grants to more than 13,000 large and small departments across the country.
Whether they are in a 10-person or a 1,000-person department, first responders are the ones that stand between the patient living or the patient dying—and, more and more often, between the bad guys and freedom. We need to do a better job protecting those who protect us. We owe them that much.
Andy Bershad, an NYPD Detective, and FEMA Haz Mat/Rescue Specialist is an advisory board member for Armor NOW.
