I was shown this video of a Minnesota Public Safety department. It’s quite interesting and as ParamedicTV notes:

This video is a photo montage of the men and women of the Woodbury Public Safety department (Minnesota). It is a inspirational video that promotes all those that work in Public Safety. Woodbury has an unique EMS system it has Police Officer Paramedics. The whole department plays a role in EMS.


As the Woodbury Crime Prevention & Public Safety Board states:

Many police officers had been cross-trained as paramedics.




This cross-training is also present in other states, where job ads state:

Must be eligible to work as both a police officer and a paramedic.

This is different than the Police SWAT/SORT member, who is a medically trained, law enforcement officer educated on treating tactical and trauma issues, but not the general medical call. This is something that has become more common, and rightfully so, especially in more rural areas where police are the first ones on scene and often remain there by themselves for extended periods of time.



Posted by Dave on September 2, 2008 | Permalink & Trackback