Skilled Hands - Lt. Scott Tunnicliffe

Written by Bakersfield Magazine

We’ve seen them portrayed in movies and on television, but real life bomb technicians actually live the drama you only see in Hollywood. Highly skilled and, by their very nature, experts under pressure, these individuals take their lives in their hands on a daily basis. It’s a life spent on the knife-edge, and when there’s a bomb threat, these men and women come to the rescue.

Lieutenant Scott Tunnicliffe, a 21-year veteran of the Bakersfield Police Department, has been working as a certified bomb technician for nearly two decades; a career aspiration that most—including fellow officers—consider crazy.

A bomb tech is nothing without his equipment and Tunnicliffe is proud of the Bakersfield Police Department’s brand new bomb squad response vehicle. It’s fully loaded with high-tech gadgets to disarm most explosives.

“When I started, all we had was a mini-van with all of our gear inside,” he explained. “We made our own devices—modified pliers; pieces of sprinkler pipe. We built our own charges. There was a lot of improvising, everything we did was literally done by hand.”

Designed to deflect blast overpressure—a shockwave that can literally turn your water-based cells into jelly—as well as a 4,000-degree thermal blast, is the 125-pound DOD 9 bomb suit. Appearing like something used for walking the barren landscape on Mars, this is the only thing that separates Tunnicliffe from the explosive device he is just inches away from.

“There have been so many advances in personal protection and technology,” Tunnicliffe added, “but just a mere four ounces of explosives can still penetrate any suit.”

Even with advancements in robotics designed to decrease a technician’s “time on target,” eventually there must be some human interaction. This is where the bomb technician earns his stripes and where intense training pays off.

“You’re aware at all times that whatever you are working on can kill you,” Tunnicliffe mused. “For me it’s mentally challenging as well as physically challenging. Between the weight of the equipment and pressure when you’re down range, there is nothing like it.”

Tunnicliffe depicts the deadliness of these devices by explaining that two ounces of water can tear apart a metal box using controlled counter explosives. This is a method referred to as render-safe bomb disabling.

“Explosives don’t care if you’re a good guy or a bad guy, when the right set of circumstances happen and it’s time for them to blow up—they blow up,” Tunnicliffe said. “There is always the danger of sustaining life threatening injuries, or the loss of limbs.”

Not everything Tunnicliffe does is in the line of fire. Post-blast work is the tedious process where technicians comb the blast site by hand, one-piece at a time, separating and bagging all the pieces from a blast.

“Evidence can be found no matter how big of an explosion,” Tunnicliffe expained. “I have spent days picking up tiny fragments, some as far away from the blast site as 1,100 feet.”

This evidence is able to provide prosecutors with details of an explosion such as: what type of device, where it was, and how it functioned.

Tunnicliffe was adamant that his career as a bomb squad technician is the result of Sergeant Danny Shrider, who Tunnicliffe regards as the founder of the Bakersfield Bomb Squad in the early 1970s.

“I was lucky enough to work with him for a long time before his retirement,” he said, smiling. “I learned a lot from him.”

And this Lieutenant plans on playing with things that go boom for a long time. With a grin on his face, and confidence in his voice, he said, “I will do this until I retire.”

Article appeared in our 26-5 Issue - December 2009

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