Ep 104: Ballistic Protection for EMS
Episode 104
Published Feb 3, 2025
Last updated Feb 18, 2026
Duration: 24:31
Episode Summary
Ballistic protection for EMS can be beneficial, but it requires careful planning, budgeting and consideration of numerous factors to implement effectively.
Episode Notes
Episode 104 features a panel discussion with law enforcement and Fire EMS, delving into the benefits, challenges, and practical considerations of implementing body armor for emergency medical services. While the risk of EMS personnel getting shot in active shooter events is relatively low, body armor can provide an additional layer of safety. However, implementing ballistic protection is not a simple task and requires careful consideration of various factors including fit and comfort, cost and maintenance, mobility and size variations.
View this episode on YouTube at https://youtu.be/I785vhYyHR8
Transcript
Bill Godfrey:In an active shooter event for EMS, you're probably not going to get shot. But if you do get shot at, should you be wearing something to protect you? That's today's topic. Stick around.
Welcome to the "Active Shooter Incident Management Podcast." My name is Bill Godfrey, I'm your podcast host. And joining me here at the National Center for Integrated Emergency Response is three of our other instructors. I have to my left Kami Maertz, on the law enforcement side.
Kami Maertz:
Good morning.
Bill Godfrey:
Good to see you again. Across the aisle here from us, Terrance Weems, law enforcement out of Indiana.
Terrance Weems:
Good morning.
Bill Godfrey:
The great state of Indiana.
Terrance Weems:
Yes, sir.
Bill Godfrey:
All right. And next to you is Scotty Formankiewicz, on the Fire EMS side like myself. Scott, good to have you down from Wisconsin.
Scott Formankiewicz:
Glad to be here.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, I bet. I bet.
Scott Formankiewicz:
Yes, sir.
Bill Godfrey:
Kami and I are used to this 60-degree weather. I don't know what you guys are complaining about. Exactly.
Terrance Weems:
I thought it was a little too warm, to be honest.
Bill Godfrey:
Okay, so today's topic is ballistic protection for EMS. Is it a good idea? Is it a bad idea? Is it necessary? Is it essential? Let's first acknowledge a couple of things. One, they don't call them bulletproof vests for a reason. So they're not bulletproof. But ballistic protection has improved dramatically in the last decade and created some interesting opportunities. But before we get into whether this is or isn't a good idea, Kami, Terrance, can you guys talk a little bit as law enforcement officers who use ballistic protection a lot, what some of the challenges are in modern-day ballistic protection?
Kami Maertz:
Well, some of it is fit right? Is that you want to make sure that... I mean, you can wear a vest, but it's not super comfortable. You have to get used to wearing it. And you want to make sure it fits, right? So you're protecting the vital organs, but my vital organs are going to be different than yours... Well, not different. We're all going to have the same vital organs. But the position of them would be different. And so we want to make sure though that it fits well and that it's fit to us, and that we also get used to wearing it. Like I said, if you just throw it on every once in a while, you're going to be paying more attention to that vest than anything else.
Terrance Weems:
Right, and you have to be realistic about what it does, the purpose, the weight of it, right? So you have all of your regular equipment that you're wearing in addition to the vest. And depending if you're wearing just a regular soft vest or a rifle plate in that vest, right?
Bill Godfrey:
And what are the differences? Can you describe the differences for me?
Terrance Weems:
So the differences are generally a soft vest is going to take something up to, let's say, a rifle... I'm sorry, a shotgun slug.
Kami Maertz:
Depending on the level. Yeah.
Terrance Weems:
Depending on the level. So if you're wearing a Level III vest, generally, handgun to shotgun. And that's it. If you go up, so you have a III+ that may be able to take something more than a shotgun. But one of the things that's on everybody's mind is, "Well, if there's something that can take a rifle, how about I get a rifle?" But now you're going up more in weight also. So it's not just one size fits all, as she was talking about. But it's not one size fits all as far as the projectile. Each one of those is going to change the weight. It's going to change the fact that you're sweating underneath that. So are you prepared for that, the heat of it? And then, once you get involved into a serious situation, if you have not practiced with it, you're not regularly wearing it, you're not used to all of the things that come along with that, you're going to get fatigued rather quickly.
Bill Godfrey:
And how does it affect mobility?
Kami Maertz:
Oh, 100%. That's what we're talking about when you're not used to wearing it, right? So even after a while, if you go back to wearing a vest, you've been off two weeks and you come back, and suddenly you're tugging and pulling and this is something we've worn for years and years and years, and you're still going to have that effect, right? Because it does. It changes the way that you drive. It changes the way that you can use your arms, everything, because of the fit of the vest. It just does. It's heavy. I mean, and it's something you have to get used to.
Terrance Weems:
Right, and you have all of those things that we just talked about. And then you have the budgetary limitations, right? These aren't things that you buy today and they're good through 2035.
Bill Godfrey:
Wait a minute, they don't last forever?
Terrance Weems:
They do not last forever.
Kami Maertz:
Don't last very long.
Terrance Weems:
Yeah, you're looking at about five years for most soft vests. And if you talk about a steel plate or a rifle vest only, that may last 10 years only because, and that rifle plate might weigh 25, 30 pounds, depending on the size that you get. So you figure five to 10 years, and then you have to do it all over again. But you have to plan for that, because they have to manufacture it, they have to come out and size your people. So it's not like you can do it all in one shot. This is something that... Another part of your planning process for your agency.
Bill Godfrey:
Now, Terrance mentioned Level III and the plates. Describe what Level IV is and when it's used and when it's overwhelming, from a law enforcement perspective, if you can.
Kami Maertz:
So that's when you're starting to talk about .223 rounds. Things that are body, armor-piercing rounds, things like that. That's when you're starting to move up in levels. But like you said, that increases the weight, which is why typically most patrol officers, if they can choose to go up that, but most agencies do not have that level. It limits your mobility more. It's very heavy, depending on the location that you're in. And when you're talking about Florida, when it's getting 100 degrees, that's not really beneficial to have that. We're going to have rifle plates that we can put on in addition to those vests and carry, but even that, that's a lot of weight, those kind of things. So we would rather add on layers.
But when we're talking about, even from the EMS side, right? That's something, for law enforcement, that we have our regular soft vests, we're going to put on additional layers for our rifle rounds, our rifle protection. So if you buy a base-level soft vest, then are you going to then additionally get in rifle plates? Like, at what level do you stop? At what level do you determine that that's what you need?
Bill Godfrey:
So in the Fire Service and EMS side, we have vendors that are marketing one-size-fits-all, or one-size-fits-most vests. How is that... I want to be careful how I choose this word 'cause I don't want to also get a cease and desist notice from a bunch of ballistic armor vests. How is that possible? And what is the trade off that the Fire and EMS side, who's buying a vest that's being shared from somebody from my size to your size, what are we getting into?
Terrance Weems:
And first I'll start only because it's for me to put... I'm assuming that they are marketing outside vest carriers that you can slide on. But even with that, even when it's three degrees outside, you're going to sweat underneath that vest. And imagine 90, 100 degree. So the cleanliness of that whole situation has taken me to a whole nother level in my brain.
But the only way that that would be possible if it is an outside vest carrier and you're going small to extra large, let's say. But the problem is what is a small and what is an extra large? And she talked about, Kami talked about vital organs and that sort of thing. And when you have a vest and it's not covering here on the sides, and that's generally where you're going to have that point of failure, is going to be there. And that's where you're most likely, depending on your positioning, if you don't have it there, then you put yourself at a disadvantage.
Kami Maertz:
And even when you're talking about, like for us, like I know the way I wear my vest, the cut on my vest, that's the way I like it. You could have somebody who's literally the same size as me but doesn't like their vest cut as long, doesn't like their vest cut as high. All of those things are particular to each person because it changes mobility. On every single cut is going to... Like if I have my vest longer is going to change how I can sit in my car, what gear I can have on my belt. All of those things you have to consider. So when you're talking about a one-size-fits-all vest, that's going to change of what you can do in your that vest versus what I can do in the vest, the same thing, because our bodies move different. Our bodies are fitted different.
Terrance Weems:
The vests are literally custom-made.
Kami Maertz:
Yes, and another side too is that we had... Where we decided we were going to do for ballistic helmets, right? So I'm on the negotiation team, we decided we were just going to get the kind of one-size-fits-all for that. So we ordered them in a couple different sizes. And one of the sizes came in and it was too small for everybody on the entire bus. It kind of set... So then we had wasted money, though, in that. Instead of having them properly fitted for everybody, we had wasted money on a helmet that was completely useless to everybody 'cause it didn't fit anybody in the entire bus.
Bill Godfrey:
It's interesting. And I was going to ask you guys about the helmet protection before Scott and I start talking a little bit about some of the challenges on the rigs. Years ago when we first started seeing ballistic protection slide into the Fire EMS side, we would have people show up at training wanting to wear their gear, which I applaud, I think is great. But they were using basically the battlefield helmets with the webbing that had to be fitted, except it wasn't fitted for any one person. They were sharing the gear. And we had so many problems with every time the medic would lean over to the role player...
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
- the helmet would come off. And we had one, a role player that got smashed in the face, badly bloodied nose and mouth. And led us to the point of saying, "Okay, if this is the kind of helmet you've got, you can't wear it during the training because it's too much of a risk."
Now I understand most of the helmet manufacturers have switched to the turnbuckle in the back to get the adjustment. How much protection is there in the ballistic helmets and how much difficulty is there in fitting ballistic helmets?
Kami Maertz:
I mean, there is protection, right? They are important. They serve a purpose, obviously. So they are important to have. However, that's not even going to be a gender thing for the size, right? That's going to be dependent on your head size. And so that's what we found. 'Cause we thought, "Well, we have a few females, so we'll get small and that should fit. And then we have large for the..." And that wasn't it. It was the size of everybody's heads that was the problem. And so that was the issue, though. If we had had... Even from a medium, we can tighten them down. But if nobody fits small, then now, like I said, we've wasted and it was quite a bit of money for that. We wasted that money and not knowing that that was going to happen, and assuming that we could just adjust it and it would be simple, instead of taking that step.
Bill Godfrey:
Terrance, what are your thoughts on helmets?
Terrance Weems:
I think for... And it all depends. If you're going to go that way, then you go that way. You're doing it for a reason. And this is one of those things that you don't have to do. As a friend of mine said, you can't get half-pregnant, right? You have to be all in, make sure that you are doing it and you're doing it right, well-informed, and you're making sure that your people are protected.
Bill Godfrey:
Okay. So Scott, I'm going to tangent a little bit and talk about some of the challenges of having shared gear, whether it's on a fire apparatus or an ambulance EMS vehicle. What are some of the things that you've seen on how they've done that, how they're storing it?
Scott Formankiewicz:
So it gets difficult, especially when we're talking about ambulances and fire engines and things like that. The amount of equipment that we have, we're already over stuffed, so now where do we put it? Are we putting it in an outside compartment? Is it easily accessible or the only place we can do it is buy the chainsaw and now is a ballistic vest good around caustic substances, gasoline, things like that? So where are we putting them is the biggest thing.
And then of course the sizing of it. We change shifts. When you change shifts, are people actually taking that vest, putting it on, and sizing it to them so that when they have to put it on, are they actually doing it? And typically, we weren't seeing that where they were just putting it on, and it was a gentleman that was before that was much larger than that individual. And now before they can even go in, they have to mess with their vest and things like that. So that's just a couple of the difficulties that we've been finding.
Bill Godfrey:
What about helmets?
Scott Formankiewicz:
So the big place is, where do you put them? And it was the same thing. We saw a lot of it where they were the old-style helmets. And it just became almost a hindrance early on where if it's a hindrance, what are you going to do? I'm just going to take it off and not wear it. So now are we basically defeating ourselves, and what we're trying to do by having the helmets that we were wearing were old, passed down, old SWAT helmets, nobody wore them, so they just stayed in the truck and we just left them. I think we're doing ourselves a disservice by not getting true good-fitting materials.
Kami Maertz:
I think the other side of that too is, when you're considering it, we don't know how many EMS we're going to send down range, right? So if you don't have a vest or a helmet for everybody, like who gets chosen to be like, "Well, you're not as important today," right? We only have five, and who gets that choice?
Bill Godfrey:
"Remember when you spoke up at that meeting last week? Yeah, you're going..."
Kami Maertz:
"No vest for you." Yeah. And so those are important things to consider, though. You don't know how many people we're going to need to send down range. So having a vest for everybody kind of alleviates that problem too.
Scott Formankiewicz:
And then there's the cost associated with it. So are you more likely to get two larges, two extra larges, two mediums? Hopefully we can do what we can do with them. That's all we're getting. Just another challenge.
Bill Godfrey:
I think one of the things that sticks out to me, aside from the helmet thing I already commented on, is so many of the, I think you referred to them as the outside carriers, the outside vest, I'm seeing them adorned with pockets and straps, and you're carrying a trauma bag on your chest. And I just can't really imagine a worse idea. You're wearing something you're not used to wearing, to begin with. It's already limited your mobility. You got a helmet on your head. Now you're trying to look down your chest and figure out which pocket this was in. Because, let's face it, if we're not using it every day, we don't remember which pocket had the airways and which pocket had the gauze in it.
Terrance Weems:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
And so you're trying to pull it out. If you got gloves on, you get blood... I don't understand the thinking as opposed to putting stuff in a carry bag. Have you seen that been a challenge?
Scott Formankiewicz:
I absolutely have. And it's the classic you overwhelm yourself with all of your equipment. And then the other component of this that we think about is just like you were saying, and now you have to drag somebody. How are you going to be body mechanics-wise? Are we opening ourselves up to liability? Because now we're using poor lifting mechanics and trying to drag people. And then it's the classic, we've all heard of it, the yard sale. So I want to get one tourniquet and I end up losing half the contents 'cause I'm digging for it, and I think it just increases the amount of time. So going a little bit slick on your body armor and maybe carrying bags or something external that's detachable, movable. 'Cause we forget about the other components of moving people, which is always a challenge.
Terrance Weems:
And I hate to really bring this up, but it is reality. We have to look at the morbidity of some of our people. Right? And if you are not accustomed to wearing that extra weight on your body as well as your head, and you're in a stressful situation, what is the likelihood that we're going to be dragging you out of the situation? Right? I guess the good thing is the outer vest carriers have a grip for you to drag somebody. But we don't want to do that. We have to make sure that you practice with what you're wearing. And you have to make sure, as we should be, caring for our people to make sure that they're in proper shape to do the job.
Bill Godfrey:
It's funny, you mentioned that and it just reminded me of a full-scale exercise I was watching, and I watched a SWAT team that was carrying victims unaided, so no backboards, no stretchers. They were just picking them up and carrying them. And it was a well-equipped SWAT team. To my knowledge, they were wearing Level IV or near Level IV. Big, big healthy guys. And I did not watch any of them carry more than two patients before they had to take a break.
Terrance Weems:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
It's just exhausting.
Terrance Weems:
Extremely.
Bill Godfrey:
And so that not overwhelming ourselves is a really interesting thing. And so the other thing I want to mention here is there's a number of policy-setting organizations, national organizations that have endorsed or suggested body armor should be required or should be mandatory. So let's deal with the first thing. So statistically, the potential of police officers getting shot in active shooter events, those numbers aren't very good.
Kami Maertz:
No.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. Of the active shooter events where the shooting is still ongoing when law enforcement arrives, half of the time you're going to end up in a gunfight with a bad guy, and one out of four times, almost one out of three, a police officer's going to get shot.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
And so there is one heck of a case to be made for law enforcement being in body armor and being in protection.
Terrance Weems:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
How much of that risk gets translated to EMS that are working a rescue task force down range?
Terrance Weems:
There's always going to be risk. But it is very, very minor. And I'm not sure if the question is going to be for people obviously above us, is that worth the safety component of that, and is the financial responsibility worth that? And that's something for them to answer. But I believe that, just based on your question, that risk is completely different than it is for that first, second, or third responding officer.
Kami Maertz:
The concern I would have is when you're talking about "required," right? So if they're going to require it, does that mean that they're not going to allow them to go in the warm zone if they can't provide it? Right? So if this agency doesn't have the money... 'Cause there's always going to be a risk. Like Terrance said, there's always a risk. We are creating warm zones and we are setting a law enforcement component to be able to get them in and out safely. If we've managed an incident correctly, we have tactical who's speaking to people who are on the scene, in case the scene goes active, these units have been trained to pull back in case something goes sideways. So we're doing all of the things to try to minimize as much as we can. And so, while I think they're a good idea, if we're going to make requirements, then does that limit our ability to complete our mission successfully?
Terrance Weems:
But also, does that penalize the person? You remember when we first had to wear the traffic vest?
Kami Maertz:
Yes. Yeah.
Terrance Weems:
Right? How many times did they tell you, after they gave them to you, if you get a hit out there, you're not going to be covered...
Kami Maertz:
100%, yes.
Terrance Weems:
if you don't have it. So now...
Kami Maertz:
Because they're required. Yeah.
Terrance Weems:
Because they're required. And if you require something, that means that you have to wear it anytime you're in that situation. So is the requirement going to be every time you're on duty? Is the requirement going to be when you go into an active or a violent situation?
Kami Maertz:
Yeah, and who's deciding? Yeah. And the liability that 100% that goes along with that.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, and I think that's the part of this, that on the surface it sounds like a really good idea. And I agree, Terrance, with your budget comments. And Scott, I assume you've seen this as well. There's actually a fairly generous amount of grants and funding opportunities for getting ballistic protection for EMS, for Fire and EMS, and I am supportive of that.
Kami Maertz:
100%
Bill Godfrey:
And I don't want to be misconstrued here to suggest that we are not supportive of this conceptually. We are supportive of it. I am supportive of it. I think if you can afford it, you should do it and get it done. I also think it's more complicated than just yes or no. I think there's some degrees here. The decisions about how are we going to fit people? What is the level of protection we're going to carry? Where are we going to store it on the vehicles? If we're sharing stuff, how are we going to ensure sanitation? And oh yeah, the grant paid for the first round of vests.
Terrance Weems:
What about the second...
Bill Godfrey:
Five years from now, do I have the city manager or the county manager's buy-in to spend our ad valorem tax money? Because your ability to get grant to get new is good. Your ability to get grant to replace, almost nonexistent.
Terrance Weems:
Yeah. And I...
Kami Maertz:
You said it as a requirement, right?
Terrance Weems:
And I can tell you a police officer knows several things, right? They know what kind of gun they're carrying. I mean, they know a whole bunch of things, but I'm making a point. They know when their vest expires.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Terrance Weems:
And they will start sending emails. So we have a quarter master system, right? They will start sending emails like, "Hey, my vest expires in December." Basically asking, "When am I getting fitted for my new vest?" Because it is that important for us to know that, and for that to happen and be regularly scheduled. And do you have somebody that's going to take the responsibility to make sure that they're doing that very thing?
Kami Maertz:
A lot of questions for you.
Terrance Weems:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
Scott, I think, from a Fire EMS perspective, if you are thinking about body armor, considering it, or even if you've already got it, maybe you got one of these grants, you've already bought it, what do you think? Grab some of your local coppers who are very familiar with this stuff and sit down and talk to them about some of the things maybe you didn't have your eyes open about?
Scott Formankiewicz:
I 100% think that's the case. Because we don't know this stuff, obviously, as well as law enforcement does. So obviously... And again, it goes with the how often are we using it? You get the grant, if it's something that you put on once or twice in a five-year period, is it going to be a little harder to justify? Are you using it on all of your acts of violence scenes? And it's a commonplace for people to go ahead and put them on.
And I think even from the RTF perspective, if we throw it in there a little bit, that if you're not requiring me to wear body armor going into this situation, we all talk about the word "complacency." Is there a possibility that I, as fire EMS, I'm not geared up for this, I'm not wearing anything that says I'm in anything different than a medical call at a house? So is my mindset going to be a little bit changed because I'm not actually properly equipped thinking I'm going into this situation? Mentally I'm not there. I'm thinking this is a run of the mill, which obviously, as we all know, is not a run of the mill call.
Kami Maertz:
Yeah.
Terrance Weems:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. So I think that would be my parting message to this, is, is body armor a good idea, ballistic protection a good idea for Fire and EMS? And I think my answer is yes, with the understanding that it ain't simple and you need to plan it and really think through and know how you're going to maintain it, how you're going to replace it, how you're going to handle turnover, how you're going to handle a guy like me who's six-foot-four and 270 pounds and outside the normal size range versus the rest of your 90% staff that can fit into these couple of vests, so...
Terrance Weems:
Oh, yeah. And recognizing the limitations, right? Something that I've heard a couple times over the last week is it doesn't make you Superman.
Kami Maertz:
No.
Terrance Weems:
Right? More like Batman. Batman is the greatest superhero ever. But it does not make you Superman. You are not invincible just because you put some body armor on.
Kami Maertz:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
I think we'll leave it right there, folks. If you have any questions or comments, please send them over to us at info@c3pathways.com. Or if you're watching us on YouTube, you can put them into the comments sections. We do kind of monitor that. If you have some specific challenges or questions that you'd like some help with, give us a call. We're always happy to help. Thank you to our producer, Karla Torres, and until next time, stay safe.