Sheriff’s Citizens Academy students listen as Supervisor Chris Clark of the Emergency Medical Services’ Special Operations Response Team describes some of the equipment used by the team.
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Editor’s Note: This is the fourth of a series of stories about the Sheriff’s Citizens Academy at Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office. The academy is for citizens interested in learning more about the sheriff’s office. The academy is free and lasts 16 weeks. For more information, contact Deputy Greg Dotson at 904-3033.
When a law enforcement officer was shot in 1993, the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office and Emergency Medical Services formed a tactical team to ensure paramedics responded to every response.
Since then, sheriff’s deputies and paramedics expanded training to save citizens from water-related activities, hazardous materials spills and other emergency situations, said Chris Clark, supervisor of the EMS Special Operations Response Team.
“We have some of the best county employees – fire, EMS and law enforcement,” Clark told members of the Sheriff’s Citizens Academy. Clark described the team effort among the county employees during the tour of the SORT building.
SORT employees are paramedics who work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They respond to emergencies such as vehicle crashes with injuries, hazardous spills, floods, fires, tornadoes and rescues of trapped people, trench collapses, water rescues, drownings and searches of missing people, including in the wilderness.
Specially trained paramedics are assigned to SORT. All are hazardous materials technicians.
Paramedics Robert Oaks, who works with SORT, described the main truck that hauls equipment for most situations. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security funded much of the equipment including the truck that hauls used equipment ranging from tanks to fill air packs to power tools used to rescue people trapped in trenches.
“We’re equipped for any mission,” Oaks said.
About 23 critical care paramedics serve on the SORT team. Numerous deputies and volunteer firefighters train in swift water rescues, hazardous materials, extrications and other emergencies.
Because of their expertise, the team is called to other Tennessee counties. They made 250 rescues during the May 2010 floods in Nashville. They helped rescue victims in a Bradley County tornado.
And they responded to a call of a missing 10-year-old Rutherford County girl at Center Hill Lake.
Divers used sonar to locate the girl who had drowned.
“It’s not glamorous,” Clark said of the responsibility to help people in distress. “We are able to put a closure to somebody’s loss.”
Clark, who has worked in EMS more than 20 years, said that call affected him personally.
“I couldn’t leave until we found her,” Clark said solemnly. “She played with my daughter.” |
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