BULLITT CO., Ky. (WDRB) -- For years, police departments have added body cameras to their uniforms. Now, some emergency management systems are considering adding the tool to their kits.

Bullitt County EMS said it could be one of the first in the state of Kentucky to provide Axon body cameras to all of its staff.

Shift supervisor and paramedic Dani LaTondress said the discussion around body cameras began a few months ago, while attending a resuscitation academy with other first responder agencies from Kentucky. There, the team learned about agencies using audio recordings during events, like cardiac arrests, and use recordings as a training tool and quality improvement and assurance standpoint. 

"These devices are really for three main areas. It's for training, quality assurance and quality improvement, and the very few cases we get of complaints," LaTondress said. "The employees we work with daily on the streets and in the back of the ambulance, they do a fantastic job, and we really want to outline and highlight their integrity and their professionalism. We know they're doing a great job, we want to help improve upon what they're doing." 

LaTondress said paramedics and EMTs would turn the body cameras on from the time they get in their vehicles to the time they return from a call. She said the main purpose of recording will be for trainings.

"Our crews have told us they want improved training. They want training specialized to our area and the cases that we see and this is what will give that to them where we can see what they are dealing with on the street day by day," she said. "The rainy environment that you're in, the I-65 on the other side, traffic going by the loud noises, you can't depict all of that in words, you can't properly train and show that. It would be phenomenal for our training department to be able to have these videos and show that."

Unlike body camera video police departments use and record, LaTondress said the video would not be subject for open records requests or released in other ways because of privacy laws. 

"The HIPPA privacy laws will be followed 100% with this program and that will be monitored also by our country attorney and medical director," she said.

The Axon body camera also uses redaction software that can redact faces, people, even objects out of it. 

"If we respond to a patient's home, and we are responding to their grandfather, and there's several minors in the home, those minors will be redacted out of it," LaTondress said. "If we respond out to someone who has, for instance, slipped and fallen in the bathtub, it would redact that out so they're not being exposed through our video systems."

On Tuesday, the Bullitt County Fiscal Court approved the EMS department to start a six week trial phase no cost to them. EMS will outfit its command staff with cameras during its trial.

Once approved, and policies are created, Bullitt County estimates it could have between 40 to 80 devices and cost between $40,000-$80,000.

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