{"id":25963,"date":"2024-08-21T21:29:43","date_gmt":"2024-08-22T03:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/new-gates-at-cortez-school-delay-ems-after-athlete-breaks-leg\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:31:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:31:30","slug":"new-gates-at-cortez-school-delay-ems-after-athlete-breaks-leg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/new-gates-at-cortez-school-delay-ems-after-athlete-breaks-leg\/","title":{"rendered":"New gates at Cortez school delay EMS after athlete breaks leg"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"On
On Tuesday night, an injured football player had to wait for EMS to get through a locked gate on the school campus, as coaches weren\u2019t provided with gate codes. Journal file photo<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Emergency personnel and the Cortez Fire Protection District struggled to reach an injured Montezuma-Cortez athlete Tuesday night because coaches were not given codes to open new gates and responders apparently had not been fully trained.<\/p>\n

To open the high school gates, physical education teacher and coach Jarrett Watkins had to call Athletic Director Colton Trosclair, who had to call Assistant Superintendent Eddie Ramirez to retrieve the codes.<\/p>\n

Watkins said that at first, Ramirez wouldn\u2019t give the code to him and instead asked Trosclair to go to the school to put the code in. Ramirez ended up contacting facilities director Ray Lopez to open the gate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told Colton I had a kid with a broken leg and I needed the code now,\u201d Watkins said.<\/p>\n

After the code was provided, the gate \u201chung up\u201d three times because an antenna on the control box had been stolen. Watkins got the fire crew through the gate, but EMS had to go around the back of the school to enter.<\/p>\n

Before the athlete broke his leg, another football player had dislocated his shoulder, and the gates delayed his mother\u2019s attempt to take him to the emergency room.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m aggravated that it took the same scenario we described to actually happen before they gave us a code,\u201d Watkins said.<\/p>\n

Last month, Watkins, Nicci Crowley and Mitch Taffe addressed the Montezuma-Cortez Board of Education<\/a>, warning that the high school needed an athletic trainer in case a player was injured in practice or competition. The position of trainer, held by Mitch Taffe, had been eliminated earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The board then allowed Taffe to be on the field, and he was there Tuesday to help the injured student while EMS tried to get through the gate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt made a huge difference (having an athletic trainer). Mitch brought out an air splint and got the leg immobilized before the EMTs ever arrived,\u201d Watkins said. \u201cWe had to wait for EMTs to transport the player.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mitch
Mitch Taffe<\/span>Courtesy Southwest Health System<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Superintendent
Superintendent Tom Burris<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Superintendent Tom Burris and Ramirez told The<\/em> Journal<\/em> that Homeland Security Division had recommended the gates when a vulnerability study identified \u201cweaknesses.\u201d<\/p>\n

The gates were installed this summer at the middle school and high school and were put in place with a grant the district acquired for safety. Each gate has a keypad with pass codes for staff, as well as a keyless card option to swipe. Ramirez said the gates are equipped with a Knox Box, which provides access to properties.<\/p>\n

Burris shared that emergency personnel usually know to look for the Knox Boxes on gates such as these, and the box holds keys to the gates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure that our EMS from last night knew that box was there, so that\u2019s going to be a training piece as we move forward,\u201d Burris said.<\/p>\n

When asked about why coaches didn\u2019t have a code for emergency purposes, Ramirez said that the code implementation \u201chadn\u2019t gotten that far yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe athletic director called me directly, and I got a hold of our facilities director, Ray Lopez. He was able to allow them access. We also had some vandalism where someone was taking the antenna off the gate system, so we\u2019re securing that, but it didn\u2019t delay access,\u201d Ramirez said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be disseminated to all the coaches and activities director, administrator \u2026 law enforcement and fire department are all trained on that and know that, so we feel comfortable with it now,\u201d Burris said. \u201cIt was a situation of new equipment and new access. We fell short last night, but we have already gotten all of those avenues fixed today. Moving forward, we\u2019re in a better place than we were, and sometimes it just takes testing the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burris and Ramirez also shared that all staff have access to an E3 system on their phones that will immediately alert police and law enforcement of emergencies and can enact lockdown.<\/p>\n

Former District Accountability Committee member Monica Plewe told The<\/em> Journal<\/em> that before the gates were installed, the DAC and High School Accountability Committee had proposed a way that emergency service vehicles could have \u201ceasy access to injuries and the fire hydrant at the south end\u201d of the school, but that their concerns and suggestions were repeatedly ignored.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe board never responds to any of the concerns or suggestions,\u201d Plewe said. \u201cThis is just one of many concerns that came from high school parents through the SAC meetings that was not listened to. \u2026 One of the hugest problems right now is that they don\u2019t ever bring their ideas too. They just implement all these new things without asking anyone\u2019s opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked about the suggestions brought to them, the Montezuma-Cortez RE-1 district stood by the decision to use the gates.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt goes to personal wants, rather than safety,\u201d Burris said. \u201cThe gates are what was suggested by Homeland Security and our safety trainer.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story will be updated as more information comes available.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coaches did not have codes; \u2018sometimes it just takes testing the system,\u2019 superintendent says <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25964,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,1152,28,60,216,29,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-emergency-incident","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-montezuma-cortez-school-district-re-1","tag-newsletter","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25963"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79172,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25963\/revisions\/79172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25963"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}