ALBANY — The county has a new training trailer that can be used to simulate real life scenarios for a host of different law enforcement, fire and emergency health care disciplines.
“I think this is a unicorn. I don’t think there is a trailer anywhere at all that is like this that can serve functionality of police, fire, EMS, K9s, SWAT teams, search and rescue teams,” said Sheriff Craig Apple during a demonstration at the Fuller Road Fire Department. “Reality based training is what everything is moving towards.”
During the demonstration, the trailer was filled with smoke so firefighters could simulate searching for a victims, drugs were hidden in and around the trailer so K9s could search them out and law enforcement officers broke down a door to mimic a raid.
The $70,000 it cost to purchase the old moving trailer and the items inside to make it look like a home came from drug seizure money, Apple said, and didn’t directly cost taxpayers outside of the hours it cost county employees to put it all together.
The training trailer, the brainchild of Albany County Fire Services Coordinator Gerald Paris, will be available for agencies all over Albany County.
