Last week, a Polk County SWAT medic was shot in the shoulder during a barricaded suspect shootout. A Polk Sheriff’s Office M.R.A.P. was peppered by the suspect with over 40 rifle bullets in the incident. This scenario reminded me of some of my Team’s struggles to integrate medics into our own program.
When I joined SWAT in 1989, there were no trained medical professionals on any tactical unit in the my county. About eight years later, we began sending fire department paramedics to SWAT School. Although the FD guys qualified with handguns and shotguns, they only carried them in training.
Once the medics had been activated with our Team, we began to think about how they would be utilized on actual operations. We practiced bringing the medics with us on perimeters. We integrated them into large scale entries, though they were always at the back of the stack with a rear guard as their armed companion. Medics would be called out for Continue reading
