Leadership Park City hosted a panel about public safety management at the library’s Jim Santy Auditorium March 10.
Dr. Austin Smith, Park City Hospital’s emergency medical director, said having a good relationship with local law enforcement has been critical amid a national trend of physical and verbal assault in emergency rooms.
“It may seem like we’re just a small little hospital, but on Friday there was a nurse that got verbally assaulted, and Saturday, one that suffered an injury from being physically assaulted by a patient,” Dr. Smith said. “That’s not uncommon.”
He said Summit County attorneys have come to the hospital to express their willingness to prosecute such behavior.
“So instead of it being this policy - you don’t get abused - you have the people who do the prosecuting and the teeth behind it that make the arrests in the room saying, ‘we have your back,’" Dr. Smith said. "And it just completely changed the mindset of our hospital staff.”
Park City Police Chief Wade Carpenter shared how this public safety partnership helped with the challenges of closing Main Street to vehicles during the first weekend of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Carpenter said having the support of other agencies, like the Summit County Sheriff’s Office and the Park City Fire District, made the task possible.
Summit County Sheriff Frank Smith said the road closure allowed law enforcement to easily monitor a small pro-Palestinian protest on Main Street during the festival.
“Probably the best tool that we had out there for public relations were the horses,” Smith said. “I got more compliments about the horses than the people sitting on them.”
Park City School District Superintendent Lyndsay Huntsman said she’s excited about partnering with law enforcement for educational purposes.
“We are offering a law enforcement class at the high school next year,” Huntsman said. “Our [student resource officer] will teach that class, because we do have students who are interested in pursuing that as a career.”
Huntsman said upperclassmen can also enroll in an emergency medical technician (EMT) certification program to get a head start on their future.
