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Coffee County Emergency Management and Manchester Fire Department hosted a first responder’s explosives awareness class on Tuesday, March 14 at the Coffee County Administrative Plaza.

The class was taught by the Tennessee Highway Patrol Special Operations Unit showed about sixty firefighters, police and medical technicians from area departments, plus those from the state, what some potential encounters with explosives could look like, and more importantly, how to respond.

Manchester Deputy Fire Marshal Jeremy Woods said that potential explosives that a first responder could encounter could be a pipe bomb, old dynamite or blasting caps, even unexploded ordinance from the Camp Forrest days and the Civil War.

“If it’s something that you feel like is dangerous, don’t touch it, call the authorities so they can take care of it and nobody gets hurt,” he said.

“The biggest thing we want them to take away is to be safe with it and don’t try to be a hero. (Neutralizing these devices) are what they are trained to do. They are just like any first responder anywhere. They had rather come out and it be nothing than someone to get maimed or die,” Woods said.  

Coffee County EMS Operations Officer Brandon Gunn said that “it’s a good thing that we hold these training events regularly. You get new people on the force, plus it gives law enforcement agencies to intermix and get to know each other.”

The class ended with life-fire demonstrations, including the detonation of a device in a car.