CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Fire company management, 911 customer service, and impaired driving detection were just some of the topics on the agenda for the second day of the West Virginia Public Safety Expo.
Beginning in 2008, the event is held every year at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center, hosted by a variety of law enforcement, fire, and EMS agencies from across Kanawha County.
Lieutenant of the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Department and expo vice chair, Bryan Carper said the event is not only a free opportunity for public safety officials to network and share ideas, but it also gives them a chance to receive mandatory training hours all in one place, and with resources from across the country.
“Every profession has so many hours of continued education they have to complete, like with law enforcement, we have to have at least 16 hours of continued education every year, and this is just convenient,” Carper said.
Carper said officers can receive a minim of 16 hours and up to about 32 hours total throughout the three-day expo if they need it.
He also said it’s the first year back to holding the expo in person since the onset of the Covid pandemic.
Some of the training Thursday included a Complex and Coordinated Attacks course, which is a multi-disciplinary class for fire, police and EMS personnel, along with ARIDE, or Advanced Roadside Impaired Driving Enforcement specific to law enforcement officers.
Developed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, ARIDE was created to bridge the gap in the field sobriety tests and the drug evaluation program. It’s designed to assist officers in more effective ways for observing, identifying, and articulating the signs of impaired driving.
Huntington Police Officer and coordinator with the West Virginia Governor’s Highway Safety Program, Sgt. Joey Koher was helping teach the course, and a major aspect he tells trainees is “the eyes are the windows to impairment.” He said they’re one of the first places to observe when determining if someone is impaired as they display subtle changes when the person is under the influence, such as dilated, constricted, bloodshot and watery eyes.
“Even before you start to notice the body movements, sluggish, slow, fast and rapid, exaggerated, speech issues, cognitive issues, one of the first things we start to notice is the eyes,” he said.
Koher went on to say they have noticed the number of arrests and DUIs made have been increasingly due to drugs, catching up to the most common alcohol DUI arrests. He said about 40% of the current DUIs are drug-related.
A state paid fire chief’s meeting was also held during Thursday’s portion of the expo. It’s an annual meeting for paid fire chiefs from around the state held to discuss various problems that West Virginia fire departments face and potential solutions to resolve them.
South Charleston Fire Chief, Virgil White said the issues are not all that different for departments across the state.
“It’s good that we can all get together and meet because we do have similar problems within our respective municipalities, so by getting us together we’re able to sit down at a table and work through some solutions,” he said.
One issue they all face is recruiting more firefighters into the field, and they were discussing ways they can expand their recruitment efforts by holding drives at high schools and other places to encourage potential candidates to help out at fire departments.
Another major issue White said they all face is fires starting in empty homes and buildings within communities, and finding ways to deal with the problem.
“We’re working with each other, talking to each other about what each city does as far as vacant structures, how we get rid of them, if there’s been an uptick in these fires, so these are just different things that are open for discussion,” said White.
Vendors were set up throughout the expo displaying the latest advancements in public safety technology.
Friday, May 12 is the last day of the public safety expo.