Tactical Police Med Support, Urgent Care of Highest Order

Urgent care owner David Stilley, MD, volunteers on an Iowa Suburban Emergency Response Team that provides medical service to police officers and civilians during hostage situations, issue of high-risk arrest warrants, and other potentially dangerous situations. He shares his experiences here.

“Purple Six, this is Purple One. We have secured the stronghold and have a casualty. Report up immediately...” I depart the TOC (tactical operations center) and enter the “hot zone” where moments before our element of “special weapons and tactics” police officers have entered the house of a wanted drug kingpin by force at 4:30 a.m. Fortunately, this time the casualty is a laceration from broken glass sustained by one of the officers, easily repaired on site. But we are prepared to provide immediate life saving treatment for blast or penetrating injuries to officers, perpetrators, and any hostages or third parties encountered during our deployments. In this line of work, urgent takes on a whole new meaning.

Each element of our Suburban Emergency Response Team has an imbedded, specially trained, critical care paramedic who enters the stronghold as the final member of the “stack” or single-file line of officers. On our teams the medic is also a certified reserve police officer and carries a handgun for self-protection in addition to all the armor and equipment used by the police officers, as well as a 30-pound pack of immediatecare medical equipment.

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