The New Haven Police Department Bomb Squad conducts training simulations to prepare for emergency situations and NBC Connecticut got an exclusive look Wednesday morning at how the bomb technicians evaluate threats and keep the public safe.
“They are vital to what we do,” New Haven Police Officer Jason Salgado said. “We try to make the scenarios and the training scenarios as real as possible and a lot of them are actually based off of things we've done in the field."
Before blowing up a suspicious backpack during the training scenario, the bomb squad showed us what wearing the “bomb suit” was like.
"Distance with that suit, the probability of surviving a blast -- should it happen -- increases,” said Salgado, the officer in charge of the bomb squad. “The closer you are, that lessens."
The helmet, pants and jacket cover the body from head to toe and the complete suit weighs about 85 to 90 pounds.
“Don’t let the suit dictate your movement. You dictate the movement,” an officer said.
The bomb technicians use X-rays to see what’s inside suspicious items before deciding whether detonating the device is the only way to render it safe, Salgado said.
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But Salgado would not reveal how the squad blows up explosives it encounters.
"We don't want to give away too many of our secrets," Salgado said.
