COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Columbus City Council approved spending $296,000 to buy 170 bulletproof vests and 193 ballistic helmets for members of the city's fire division.
For decades, those who work in medic units have had both, but now the division wants to protect those who ride in fire engines as well.
“I liken it to we have a house on fire and half of our firefighters don't have gear. They are not going inside a burning building,” said Battalion Chief Steve Martin of Columbus Division of Fire.
The division said the job of a firefighter has become more dangerous with the increase in mass shootings as well as everyday runs on domestic violence calls or SWAT-related runs.
“If they (the suspects) wanted to finish the job they started, it's not unusual to hear about these people pulling guns out and shooting not only the person they did before but the rescuers so for that reason we've had vets,” Chief Martin said.
Recent examples of some of the more dangerous calls that Columbus EMS crews were sent to include the 2016 attack on the campus of Ohio State which left 11 people injured.
A group of students had been run over by a car and the suspect later slashed students with a butcher knife before he was shot to death.
In 2004, a man opened fire inside the Old Al Rosa Villa nightclub killing four people.
Other shootings like the mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017, the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando in 2016, or the Chardon High School shooting in 2012 have helped to raise concerns about the need to protect those whose job it is to save the lives of the injured.
“If we are asked to do the job that we are willing to do we're just asking for the protection we need to do that job,” Chief Martin said.
The Ohio Attorney General's Office has awarded more than $5.4 million through its Ohio Law Enforcement Body Armor Program to allow law enforcement agencies to purchase body armor vests since 2019.