The accident victim was finally extricated from the mangled vehicle seconds before SWAT team members’ rapelled down the side of a building during a hostage crisis, which turned out to be a prelude to a nearby car explosion that generated a fireball.
Chaos reigned supreme on Friday, May 15, at the Chester County Public Safety Training Campus, but the simulated exercises were cause for celebration, not alarm.
Hundreds of first responders joined public officials and donors to applaud the opening of the Tactical Village, the second phase of the public safety complex in South Coatesville.
The first part of the long-awaited initiative – the education center – opened in September 2012. Chester County Emergency Services Director Robert Kagel said that since then, 25,000 individuals have participated in training classes.
“Many, many people have worked very hard to get us here today,” Kagel said. “It truly takes a village to build a village.”
Kagel read a long list of people who contributed to the completion of the project, including government officials, businesses, nonprofit foundations, politicians, and private donors. “A training camp is critical to mission success and safety,” Kagel said, expressing gratitude to all who made the center possible.
The four-acre tactical village on the campus’s 95-acre tract on Modena Road will enable responders to hone rescue skills in realistic surroundings, such as trenches, sloping roadways, burning buildings, and rail cars. The final phase of the project will be an indoor shooting range.
Chester County Commissioners’ Chairman Terence Farrell noted that since the project has involved so much collaboration over many years, dispensing thanks-you becomes a monumental task. Explaining the reason for the facility, he said: “Because nearly 300,000 times a year, someone in the county calls 9-1-1.”
Surveying the people seated on the stage, Commissioner Kathi Cozzone likened them to a “Hollywood set for safety.” But she said that the dangers inherent in the job of first-responders were starkly evident in the tributes on the site.
A steel beam from the World Trade Center, forged in Coatesville, was installed in the lobby of the education center as a tribute to the emergency responders who died on Sept. 11, 2001. The tactical village compound also includes a memorial: large chunks of limestone that were obtained from the Pentagon after 9/11.
Commissioner Michelle H. Kichline said the facility makes good economic sense since a federal mandate requires first-responders to “practice unified command,” joint training that is greatly facilitated by having a designated county location.
West Chester Police Sgt. James Morehead, who was involved in the planning of the complex, said it necessitated much rethinking and redesign. “I believe strongly, in the end, we got it right,” he said. Morehead said the education for first-responders never ends. “If you’re not constantly training, you’re doing something wrong,” he said. “Failure to train is training to fail.”
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