Squad News
Local Rescue Workers Receive Active Shooter Training
Written by Erich Martin for Levittownnow.com and posted on December 22, 2015Click here to view the original article
Local emergency workers gathered at the Saint Joseph the Worker school building in Falls Township Saturday to complete a basic training course in emergency medical response to an active shooter situation.
The class, which was full at 25 people, consisted of members of the Levittown-Fairless Hills Rescue Squad, as well as the Penndel-Middletown Emergency Squad.
The chief of the Levittown-Fairless Hills Rescue Squad, Joel Rutkowski, was present as an instructor with Tac-Med LLC, the company putting on the training in conjunction with Levittown-Fairless Hills Rescue Squad.
"The purpose is to train local providers how to deal with mass casualty events associated with active shooters," explained Rutkowski. "It's trying to get people in this line of work into a new mindset."
According to Rutkowski, the rescue workers are working on becoming more offensive in active shooter situations, often moving into active building with the clearing police force in order to attend to the injured more quickly.
"It's very exciting for the emergency medical service providers. It's also exciting for the officers because they get to see some medical stuff they might not have known," Rutkowski said.
This training program was specifically requested by the Levittown-Fairless Hills Rescue Squad and about half of the 25 students at the meeting are from the Levittown based rescue squad.
Rutkowski noted that he believes the training taking place for the EMS workers will "absolutely" have a positive impact. "I think there is a lot of relevancy in this type of training," Rutkowski said.
According to the chief, about half of the staff at the Levittown-Fairless Hills Rescue Squad have taken either this course or the basic swat medicine course.
A three day SWAT medicine course will be taking place in January.