BY NADIA MOHARIB, CALGARY SUN

Calgary: When everyone else runs for cover, fearing loss of life or limb, Const. Wade Going suits up.

Hoisting on his bomb suit — 85 lbs. of protective Kevlar and ceramic plates — his outfit is hot, heavy and awkward to say the least.

He caps it off with a huge helmet, which has LED lighting, a fan, a camera to offer colleagues a snapshot of what he sees, and a two-way radio.

With peripheral vision dramatically reduced, Going can hear his own breathing as he tiptoes on to a scene to determine if there is a real threat or, as is often the case, a hoax.

As he does, the Calgary police bomb technician, one of eight on the job, is cool as a cucumber.

“We have done scenarios literally thousands of times. All we do is work and train,” the 43-year-old says.

“We’re just laid-back guys. There’s risks but we have a lot of training and tools to keep us safe.”

Cops also use expensive, high-tech, remote-control robots able to take X-rays, photographs and samples for testing of possible chemical or biological warfare agents.

Ranging in cost from $15,000 to $500,000, the robots — which include the beloved Theodore, weighing in at 900 lbs. with the ability to climb stairs, open doors and has a 3,5000 lb. towing capacity — are an alternative to putting a person into harm’s way.

Other times, it’s a job for a bomb tech who can make a more delicate approach.

Insp. Blair White, a former bomb tech, says it’s a bit of a rush being the guy walking into a building no one in their right mind would be in.

The mind races, the brain trying to process everything the eyes can see and the task, never knowing what will be found, is both daunting and invigorating.

“You are in no man’s land,” he says.

“But you have a bomb tech in your ear, so you are never alone.

“It’s about adrenaline, excitement, the unknown, the intensity and the training.

“You have to stay alert, it’s energizing — that’s what makes you tick.”

***

One day in the mid-1990s, a commissionare at McDougall Centre found it — wires protruding from a watermelon plopped on the front steps.

It was White’s first bomb tech call.

As it happened it was a harmless hoax, someone packing batteries and wires into the hollowed-out fruit.

But it wasn’t funny until later.

“As a result, I defused a watermelon,” White says.

“We can laugh about it now.”

In another case, a nervous oil and gas executive received a suspicious package — something inside ratty paper-bag wrapping with too much postage on the outside.

It was a box of figs a friend from overseas sent to the executive.

“He laughed, we laughed and he ate his figs,” White recalls.

Given the explosive nature of the job, however, there is no room for mistakes, no taking chances that a suspicious find isn’t nefarious.

Going has been on calls where something suspicious found in a university lab was TNT flakes and another where a detonator and explosives were found in a backpack during a drug raid.

Every call is treated as the real deal.

“You can’t have a bad day,” White says of bomb techs.

“You can’t forget things.”

The bulk of several dozen calls annually for suspicious packages are hoaxes or misunderstandings, like an unattended knapsack raising the alarm.

Only about 10 or so prove bona fide threats.

Bomb techs have been called to everything from a grenade in grandpa’s garage to kids making homemade explosives and tense calls like the recent bomb scare which shut down the Calgary Courts Centre.

“We don’t want to disrupt C-Train (service) or make people miss dental appointments but if we can avoid one person being hurt that’s a decision we make,” White says.

**

Joe Citizen figuring something left in a hotel hallway looked suspicious called police.

His instincts were bang on.

It was a one-pound stick of dynamite with an electronic detonator stuck inside.

Going, who was on his first call with a veteran bomb tech that day knew any misstep could have explosive consequences, something as simple as static able to trigger it.

The pair safely destroyed the explosives and that “baby-steps” introduction to the bomb tech world, combined with a good track record, gives Going a calmness in a job where calamity can erupt at any time.

“The first time you do any call your heart rate is a bit elevated,” he says.

“Your first police pursuit your heart is ready to explode out of your chest, but once you have done that 40 to 50 times your heart rate doesn’t change anymore.”

Going, who ran a backhoe before becoming a police officer in 1995, has been on the TAC team for 12 years and is the longest-serving active bomb technician.

Part of his comfort with all things explosive comes from thousands of hours of training.

“You’re taking thousands of calls and when you are walking away safe that imprints on your brain,” he says.

“It makes you feel at ease.”

Bomb techs are certified with the Canadian Police College and continually train for scenarios they might encounter, looking to events unfolding elsewhere as templates.

“What happened in Boston is coming here,” Going says of the deadly blast at that city’s famed marathon that killed three.

“It’s just a matter of time.”

**

Bomb techs aren’t just assessing suspicious packages and disabling those with explosive potential.

Sometimes they are having a blast themselves.

On one call, Going said a man found dead man in a car where a lawn mower pumped out toxic fumes left a videotaped suicide message warning his home was booby-trapped.

Rather than walking in, police opted for “an explosive-force entry,” and blasted past the front door and soon learned it was all a sham.

“It’s surgical enough that that door could open,” he says pointing to an entry some three metres away, “and we would be fine.”

Bomb techs disable explosive devices in a variety of ways, sometimes by a countercharge or detonating a device, a part of the job which never gets old.

“It’s always cool to see things blown up,” Going says.

**

While the bomb suit combined with world-class training offers protection, White suffers no delusions there is a guarantee against the potential violence posed by an explosive situation.

“It’s there to keep you in one piece — it’s not the blast that kills, it’s the decelerations,” he says.

“It’s like a bull rider with a helmet and a Kevlar vest — you know if a 3,000 lb. bull is going to kick you, you don’t know if you are going to survive.”

White, who oversees the TAC teams, says it’s more nerve-racking to be a spectator than that guy in the suit.

“I find it harder now than when I was a bomb technician,” he says.

“I worry a lot about people that work here. I can be sending them into harm’s way and I don’t take it lightly. It’s not a computer that might crash or a paper copier that might jam — the risks are calculated — (but) I’m asking someone to put themselves in jeopardy.”

That reality drives bomb techs to be the best they can be.

“You train harder, you work harder, you do more research,” he says.

“And our organization doesn’t let us down — we have the best equipment in the world.”

**

Dangerous even for dudes with thousands of hours of training, the unenlightened dabbling with explosives are courting disaster.

“We have gone to calls when things have not gone well and a person has three fingers,” White says.

“It’s a dangerous hobby and for a criminal it’s a dangerous operation because it’s unpredictable.”

Debris from explosives can be propelled at speeds of up to 20,000 feet-per-second, and bomb blasts have proven deadly time and time again.

Months ago, who would have thought two pressure cookers abandoned on the side of Deerfoot Tr. could pose imminent deadly danger?

The reality is, bombs can be sophisticated or simple, limited only to the imagination of its creator, White says.

It could be a cell-phone activated briefcase bomb, human bombs (strapped to people by choice or by force) or a satellite phone across the world used to detonate one here.

Police prepare for every conceivable permeation and combination — deadly incidents, wherever they happen, studied by bomb experts everywhere.

“The world events hold us more accountable and authenticates what we are doing and why we are doing it,” White says.

“Incidents like Boston are tragic but we suck it all in.”

Lessons learned in the recent Boston Marathon bombings will likely save lives in future.

“The worst thing a bomb tech could do is close their mind,” he says.

That approach, no doubt, saved a Calgary woman who called police when an odd package arrived at former police chief Christine Silverberg’s office in 1999.

It was the real deal.

“Had she taken out the tape, she would have died,” White says.

Police want the public to be aware and vigilant of potential for explosive devices in their midst — prudent without being paranoid.

“We can never tell people what to look for,” White says, given explosive devices can all look very different.”

“Just know your workplace, your home and your community, and if something is out of place don’t go touch it. Call us.”