Seaford Police Department hosts active intervention training for police, fire and EMS departments

SEAFORD, Del.- Police, EMS, and Fire Companies in Delaware attended an Alert 1 Active Intervention training held at the Seaford High School Saturday, learning what steps to take, and what operational command structure to relay information to in the event of an active shooting.

“They are going to have some chaotic scenarios to go thru its better to have the hiccups here in a controlled training than in a real-world event,” said Bridville PD and Instructor Brandon Dodd.

The training is designed to teach police officers, often the first on the scene how to triage wounds and offer care to the injured once an active threat, known as a ‘Driving Force’ is dealt with.

“Our officers are learning to pack wounds and use tourniquets even if they might have had some training before we are working to refresh that,” said Seaford Police Deputy Chief and Course Instructor Micheal Rapa.

Instructors say having this training in place can prevent some of the mistakes seen in the Uvalde Elementary School shooting response.

“No one assumed command they treated them like a barricaded subject but there was a driving force threat we want to mitigate errors for better decision making,” Rappa said.

Saturday’s training wasn’t just demonstrations as the participants were put through a role-playing course based on real events, with the goal of decreasing response times between training events, and ultimately in a real response situation.

“Time is a critical factor because it doesn’t start when we get a 911 call a situation starts when the person got injured, it’s realistic at the beginning they are going to feel like they failed it’s chaos but by the end the more reps they get they build confidence,” Dodd said.

The alert training is federally funded and free for departments to engage in.

Rapa says 20 participants from Police departments including Bethany, Fenwick Island, Ocean View, Delaware State Police, Sussex County Medics, Laurel Fire Department and Dispatch EEOC were in attendance.