West New York’s police and emergency medical services departments have been making strides through grants and municipal funding.
A county grant from Hudson County’s Office of Emergency Management provided West New York EMS with training equipment, in a program geared toward active shooter situations. EMS workers will work in collaboration with police officers in order to facilitate quicker and more effective response times in the event of any potential active shooter situations.
Response and recovery
The program provides EMS workers with equipment and a skill set in order to treat and evacuate severely wounded people from ongoing crisis events. Officials expect the new equipment and active shooter training will be an asset to the department.
“We received equipment through a grant from Hudson County OEM. It will enhance our training in active shooter situations, which we’ve been training for since 2016,” EMS coordinator Billy Bringas said. “In these active shooter events, we’ll don bulletproof vests and helmets. We first received some of the equipment in 2016, and today we received the rest, and as far as I know the grant program is expanding and ongoing.”
Bringas said that police officers are drilling and training alongside EMS workers in the program, with one goal in mind: faster and more effective rescues, even in harm’s way.
He credited Public Safety Commissioner Gabriel Rodriguez with maintaining a progressive outlook for the department.
“The more hands we have on a situation like this, the better and quicker we’ll be able to perform life-saving techniques,” Bringas said. “The leadership that we have under Commissioner Rodriguez has always been about moving forward, and always performing the best work that we can.”
An interesting feature in the line of training equipment is a first aid training dummy, complete with a simulated arterial bleedout that EMTs can practice sealing.
“An artery can bleed out in three minutes,” Bringas said. “We train with hemostatic dressings, which have clotting agents so that it can clot around an injury, and a pressure bandage keeps it all in place. We’re the first municipality in Hudson County to receive this equipment.”
Hires and additions to the fleet
In addition to training with the EMS, West New York’s police department received four new police SUVs, after a unanimous vote to purchase the vehicles was cast at the most recent Board of Commissioners meeting.
“My top priority as the Commissioner of Public Safety is to keep our neighborhoods and our families safe and secure,” Rodriguez said in a statement. “In order for us to achieve this goal, it is critically important for the town to properly fund, staff, and invest in our police department to better serve our community.”
In early March, Rodriguez also reinstated a walking patrol program with the department, which entails more officers on foot beats in the areas deemed most necessary. Rodriguez said that increased foot patrols are something West New York residents should expect to continue indefinitely.
He also mentioned that he is working to secure funding to hire ten new officers in order to bring the number of those sworn in to 125, which he said is the recommended number per capita according to reports from crime statisticians.
For updates on this and more stories check hudsonreporter.com, or follow us on Twitter @hudson_reporter. Mike Montemarano can be reached at mikem@hudsonreporter.com.
