Newport Beach first responders open their doors for Public Safety Day
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Hundreds of area residents turned out Saturday when the Newport Beach Police and Fire departments opened their doors at police headquarters and Fire Station 3 to mark Public Safety Day with live demonstrations, displays, tours, food and kid’s activities.
“[This] gives residents a chance to see what we do and how we work together to keep our city safe,” said Newport Beach Police Department crime prevention specialist Sara Verschueren, who coordinated the event.
“We are fortunate to serve a community that is so supportive of their first responders, and events like this help us continue to build on that positive relationship,” Verschueren said.
Among one of the biggest attractions at the event were the two horses from the Mounted Enforcement Unit and a member of the K9 Unit, Ryder, a 4-year-old Belgian Malinois.
Ryder’s handler, Officer Eric Rosenberg, kept him on a tight leash while kids and adults took turns petting him. He described to visitors his experience living with his canine colleague.
“He lives at home with me, my wife and two young kids, and is very well integrated with the family,” said Rosenberg. “And he loves to swim in the pool.”
Since Ryder is technically city property, he has his own temperature-controlled kennel in the Rosenberg’s backyard. “When he retires [in six to eight years], I will purchase him from the city, and then he’ll be a stay-at-home pet where he can enjoy retirement,” Rosenberg said.
Across the way, former Newport Mesa school board member Karen Yelsey, now chairman of the board of the Newport Beach Police Foundation, was overseeing that organization’s booth.
“We provide funds that go to help the police department for things that are not within their budget,” Yelsey said of the foundation. “It’s my favorite volunteer activity; it feels good to support the police.”
Among the foundation’s activities is supporting the police department’s team in the annual 120-mile Baker to Vegas run, when about 10,000 runners compete. The foundation also provided a mounted horse, sponsors scholarships for officers’ children who are graduating from high school and lends assistance to the families of fallen officers.
In the Newport Beach Fire Department fire prevention booth, Fire Marshal James Gillespie and Inspector Rami Wun educated visitors about the location of zones with high fire-hazard severity in Newport Coast and Corona del Mar.
“We’re trying to educate homeowners on providing defensible space and home hardening techniques,” Wun said.
Emergency response vehicles and fire trucks were rolled out, including the hook-and-ladder truck used to demonstrate a high-angle rescue.
Firefighters Nolan Inman, Mateo Pellegrino and Kailer Wesley explained the procedure using a dummy dressed in fire gear dangling from the hook-and-ladder truck, attached to a harness along with the Stokes basket (a stretcher with rigging), with assorted straps to contain a victim who might be in peril on a cliff or high-rise building.
The event also featured live demonstrations in the police department parking lot. There, motorcycle officers navigated a cone pattern, called an eliminator pattern, to simulate moving through traffic. The SWAT team followed with a demonstration of the tactical response team simulating the end of a car chase that included K9 Ryder assisting in the take-down.
The Newport Beach Fire Department then demonstrated an auto extraction of a driver from the wreckage of a traffic collision.
The appreciate crowd gave a round of applause at its conclusion.
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