King of Prussia firefighters receive $5,000 to buy bullet-resistant vests
KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa. (CBS) – A local grocery store gave the King of Prussia Volunteer Fire Company $5,000 on Thursday to buy bullet-resistant vests.
"If someone in blue or someone in red passes, they're part of your family," said Steve Geltman, who is the director of the King of Prussia Volunteer Fire Company in Upper Merion Township.
He felt that in February when two police officers and a firefighter-paramedic were shot and killed just outside Minneapolis. They were responding to a domestic violence call.
After that shooting, he reached out to the Wegmans Food Market on Village Drive to help buy his firefighters bullet-resistant vests.
"This is the start of it," Geltman said. "We're looking for a total of $15,000, and Wegmans was kind enough and gracious enough to start us off with $5,000."
That money will help buy eight vests for two firehouses. Wegmans store manager Kevin Lang said he does what he can to keep his thousands of customers safe.
"But people responding to help any of our customers or our employees that are in need, it's extremely important to keep them safe, because they're what we rely on," Lang said.
The King of Prussia Fire Company is under the Upper Merion Fire Department, where firefighter Andrew Cikalo is a lieutenant.
Cikalo said he is grateful, because his volunteers have gotten various calls for medical assistance, then found firearms or other weapons when they arrived.
"Unfortunately, our volunteers when they go to these types of incidents, they are not necessarily what they seem at first," Cikalo said.
Cikalo said the new vests will likely not go under full firefighter gear, but they would go to firefighters who are responding to medical calls.
"There's just a different level of risk that our volunteers go into in emergency medical situations as compared to fighting a structure fire," Cikalo said.
That is why Cikalo hoped more businesses step up to help the department buy more vests.
"But we ultimately hope that the purpose of these vests never actually come to fruition for what they're meant to stop," he said.