May has been a busy month of training and equipment maintenance for the Sublette County Sheriffs’ Office. Firearms training and qualifications have been going on, Radar calibration, Taser training, vehicle maintenance, and even some new equipment demonstrations.

Earlier this week Rick Crays with Rock Solid stopped by to demonstrate a pepper spray option which is new to the market. This new spray is described as a gel rather than the typical liquid oleoresin capsicum (OC) spray. The effects are similar in that this is still an eye and respiratory irritant; however, the gel is more focused, which prevents overspray, cross contamination, and re-contamination. It is also non-flammable. The company that makes this product out of Missoula, Montana also makes a new product that is a decontamination liquid. This product quickly neutralizes, cleans, and soothes anyone who has been exposed to any type of pepper spray including OC Spray, Mace, and even bear spray.

Sheriff Lehr volunteered to test out the new gel and decontaminant. If we deploy our current OC spray, both Lt. Dunning and Deputy Johnston would have instantly been exposed and affected by the mist. Sheriff Lehr was able to recover from the exposure within the first five minutes after using the decontamination solution which would normally take at least 30 minutes to recover using water. Sheriff Lehr described the experience, “I’ve been exposed to many types of pepper spray in my career, and even though I only received a small dose of the Presidia Gel, it only took a couple of seconds until I was unable to open my eyes where normally I could fight through it. The recovery time using the decontaminate was the real eye opener, no pun intended. We’re definitely going to be putting that in our facility to decrease the time it takes to decontaminate an individual or one of our deputies who has been exposed. I feel that we will also be looking at going to Presidia Gel as our current OC spray is either used or reaches its expiration.”

The Sublette County Sheriff’s Office is committed to training and ensuring we are providing the best services to the residents of Sublette County.

#SCSOTraining #SCSO