By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Buchanan County Sheriff’s personnel have placed themselves at risk during the coronavirus pandemic as the office attempts to navigate the dangers of the pandemic as well as the extra costs incurred trying to fight COVID-19.
Buchanan County Sheriff Bill Puett says one of his deputies contracted COVID after responding to an emergency.
“Because it was a medical call, they knew it was a positive COVID address, yet the individual went down and he went ahead and performed CPR and everything else doing his duty and responsibility to try to save this man’s life,” Puett tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline.
Puett says several of his personnel have been exposed to the coronavirus simply by doing their job. The sheriff’s office cannot avoid contact with others. In fact, Puett says his deputies are constantly in contact with others.
The jail also poses difficulties.
Puett praises staff members who he says are constantly cleaning the facility. Jail inmates receive new masks daily. Inmates are being given more separation than normal. Costs have risen dramatically and Puett says the County Commission has provided federal funding from the CARES Act to offset some of the costs of responding to the pandemic.
“This has been a really good team effort to try to keep everybody safe and healthy,” according to Puett. “I think everybody is doing the best that they can with what they know. It seems like there for awhile it was changing daily with the information that we were receiving.”
Pandemic or not, the sheriff’s department carries out its mission, but with precautions.
“If we have a bad guy that’s arrested in one of the hot spots, for example, in Florida or in Oregon, or wherever that might be, and they are brought to Buchanan County then they would go into quarantine isolation for 14 days,” Puett says.
The department is awaiting its turn for vaccinations, though Puett says only slightly more than half his staff has volunteered to get the shot.