Zanesville firefighters becoming bulletproof

Zanesville+firefighters+becoming+bulletproof

By Jessica Johnston, Reporter

The City of Canton has donated 25 bulletproof vests to the Zanesville Fire Department.

It isn’t just police officers that need protection against outside harm, all first responders are operating in a society that has enhanced external risks in the field.

The vests, worth over $21,000, are about five years old but still have a shelf life of five to eight years left in them, Public Safety Director Keane Toney said.

To ensure the effectiveness of the re-purposed vests, they have been re-tested with high velocity rounds and crossbows, which Toney said is a high threat level.

“Oftentimes, firefighters arrive on the scene, tensions are high, people are upset with authority and they will not differentiate between fire and police,” Toney, who retired from the city of Canton after 30 years, said. “All they see is someone (with) authority in a blue uniform.”

The addition of the vests comes at a time when first responders, regardless of their department, can find themselves in harms way.

“Firefighters have been killed… they arrive for a house fire, a structure fire but the reason it’s on fire is because a husband has murdered his girlfriend and children, unfortunately, and he’s set the house on fire. They don’t know that,” Toney said.

Interim Fire Chief Doug Hobson is overjoyed by the new additions coming to his department with not only the vests but also the new MARCS radios.

The Fire Department is in the process of coming up with a standard operating procedure for which situations the vests will be worn in, whether that be a domestic situation, opioid use call, a shooting, a stabbing or other scenarios, Hobson said.

The vests may be put on the trucks as early as Friday, but Hobson is hoping to get them “tagged” with Fire Department and Medic labels before they go in the trucks. Although, he said, if the tags take too long to come in, he’ll put them on the trucks regardless.

“I want the guys safe, that’s the number one priority for me,” Hobson said. “At the end of the day, the firemen’s motto (is) … everybody goes home. That’s my job at the end of the day, my accountability is everybody goes home. Everybody at the Zanesville Fire Department has a family, they need to go home to their family.”

The $21,000 equipment came to the firefighters only at the cost of re-tagging them, an expense that both Hobson and Toney were more than willing to pay.

“Then again, how do you put a price on a life? We save one life, we take one stab wound away, we take a needle stick away from a fireman, it’s golden,” Hobson said. “You can’t even put a price on them.”