By Bob Fowler
Knoxville News-Sentinel
CLINTON, Tenn. — In the past, members of Anderson County Emergency Medical Services have been scratched, hit, kicked and pushed while responding to ambulance calls, EMS Director Nathan Sweet said.
Now, those 90 full- and part-time employees will be learning how to defend and protect themselves in such situations, he said.
The course by a company titled DT4EMS (Defensive Tactics 4 Escaping, Mitigating, Surviving) will begin Aug. 31, Sweet said in a news release.
All 90 employees will eventually take the two-day course, which will be taught by a half-dozen EMS workers who will take a weeklong program to become trainers.
Sweet said EMS employees have a “dangerous job, not only driving at high speeds to emergencies, there are times where we encounter violent patients.”
“Anderson County EMS is taking the step to teach our EMTs and paramedics how to not only defend themselves, but to recognize when a normal scene can or will escalate to a violent encounter, and also how to talk our way out of a violent encounter.”
“Training like this is long overdue,” Sweet said.
He said the course will cost about $5,400, but the county should recoup some of that expense because other agencies are enrolling their employees in open slots in the course, reducing the county’s cost to about $2,000.
The training will also be offered to first responders in area fire departments.
In the future, Sweet said, it will be a requirement for all new EMS employees to take the self-defense course.
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©2015 the Knoxville News-Sentinel (Knoxville, Tenn.)