ASHLAND, Ore. – Local first responders began training in the condemned Cascade Complex building at Southern Oregon University Tuesday.
Officers will continue to use the vacant site for training including building searches, tactical search and rescue, door and window breaking and more throughout the rest of August.
Tuesday, officers with the Medford Police Department exercised how to assess a situation to properly pry a door. To do this, they identity if a door is inward or outward swinging, what side the doorknobs are on, and what is behind the door to know how to approach and what methods to use.
Officials say that 80% of doors in Medford are built similarly, so being able to train here prepares them for other older buildings.
Robert Gibson with SOU Campus Public Safety says, “there’s a lot of buildings in our area that are older buildings that the way that they’re structured and the way that they’re built is similar to this building. Being able to train on the same kind of architecture, the same kind of equipment, the same type of stuff allows them to learn from that.”
Gibson says the building’s structural integrity has been cleared for these types of exercises and this training will not threaten that integrity. He also says this program was established to build a partnership between the university and first responders.
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