Training Accident Leaves 5 Injured in Philadelphia

Skippack Township, PA (WorkersCompensation.com) – Officials said five people were injured Thursday morning during a training exercise at a Montgomery County prison.

Officials said the accident occurred shortly before 10 a.m. The training session was conducted by the FBI’s Philadelphia field office. Those in attendance included representatives from several state, county and local law enforcement agencies, officials said. 

Those injured included three members of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office Bomb Squad, a Pennsylvania State Police trooper and an FBI Philadelphia agent. All of the injured people were transported to area hospitals for treatment, authorities said, and that some of the injuries were serious. 

"Staff from the Montgomery County Bomb Squad were installing an explosive device for a later class when it prematurely exploded," according to a statement from a prison spokesperson. 

Jackie Hickey is a retired bomb technician for the Los Angeles Police Department and part of the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. She told WPVI-TV reconstructing a car bombing is something routinely done for post-blast investigation training. 

"Training accidents don't usually occur, but the investigators will figure out how this happened," she said. "I worry for the techs that were injured. There's a lot of damage that occurs in an explosion, especially a vehicle. It has metal glass and a lot of debris that will come from that explosion." 

Experts said that scenes of the car from the air indicate that the charge may not have been contained. 

Anthony May, a former ATF explosive enforcement officer bomb technician, says by the looks of the charred vehicle, it appears the charge may not have been contained. 

"The entire roof of the car will come off, the doors will blow open, and sometimes depending on the charge, we use all we have left in the frame of the vehicle,” said Anthony May, a former ATF explosive enforcement officer bomb technician. “It appears that this was not that type of a device, not well contained or that they were just in set up procedures when this accident occurred." 

The FBI and Pennsylvania State Police said they would be jointly investigating the cause of the detonation. 

According to an Australian study published by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, training exercises are when police officers are at an elevated risk of injury. 

Looking at a total of 564 injuries recorded in police recruits over a 22-month period, the study found that trainees were most likely to suffer injuries to their shoulders, with sprains and strains being the most common type of injury. Muscular stress with physical exercise was the most common mechanism of injury with the activity responsible for the largest proportion of injuries being listed on reports as “unknown” followed by “police training.” 

“Injuries appear to be typically joint related—commonly the shoulder—with police training being a primary known activity at the time of injury,” the researchers said. “Prescreening protocols may be of benefit, and efforts should be made to recruit and train physically resilient trainees. Injuries, whether they occurred pre-enlistment or during training, should be fully rehabilitated prior to the individual’s commencement as a qualified officer.” 

Sally Sawyer, faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia, the study’s lead researcher said that the physicality of law enforcement tasks and duties increases the risk of injury, and that incidences of injuries within law enforcement personnel range from 240 to 2,500 per 1,000 personnel (cq). Injuries not only effect law enforcement officers, she wrote, but also impact the agencies they work for, creating financial and workforce challenges. 

“Police college training includes aspects of both physical fitness and specific law enforcement skills,” the study said. “These skills consist of defensive tactics, marksmanship training, and the load carriage of body armor and daily accoutrements. Physical training of police trainees optimizes body composition and improves physical performance measures, such as power and aerobic capacity. These improvements can improve health status, protect against injury and illness, and improve occupational performance. Conversely, the increase in physical demands required when undergoing this training can place police trainees at a higher risk of injury when compared to their trained colleagues.”

Injury prevention strategies can include more fitness training and assessments, and modifying the intensity, frequency and duration of training to minimize risk of injury.

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