Durant business donates ballistic vests to fire department

DURANT, Okla. (KXII) -Last month, Durant local agencies quickly responded to an active shooter threat that turned out to be a hoax at Durant High School.

While law enforcement have different forms of protection as they enter a potential line of fire, firefighters and paramedics are often left exposed.

Brent Gordon, owner of Gordon Funeral Home said, “we got a lot of good guys out there and the fact that they weren’t protected I thought it was a good thing to do that.”

Brent Gordon donated eleven ballistic shields to Durant’s Fire Department, “my brother is a fireman and he’s been with them for many years and we were talking about that and you know he said it’d be a great thing for us to do and we just followed suit.”

Durant Fire Battalion Chief Collin Gordon said, “recently we had some events occur here locally in town and while we have tactics and strategies to address pretty much all of those types of incidents, we were kind of lacking in our safety equipment.”

Prior to these vests, Fire and EMS relied on protection from officers, “we’ve designed our tactic to go in before the scene is actually clear and safe with a law enforcement escort and be able to address injuries on the scene and be able to get those people evacuated from the scene as quickly as possible,” said Battalion Chief Gordon.

Battalion Chief Gordon added that the metal plate vests are designed to protect against rifle rounds, “that really gives us a lot of protection in the event that we do have an active shooter incident.”

And they weigh 20 pounds a piece, “it doesn’t slow us down and it protects us from life threatening injuries so we’re certainly appreciative of Mr. Gordon for donating these vests to us.”

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