A local business owner created a bulletproof door designed to keep students safe.
“Our goal is to stop this before the shooting starts,” said Dale Ryan, owner at One Point Seven Inc. in Green Cove Springs.
Ryan created a door that could potentially save your child’s life.
“The Green Cove Springs Police Department really came in with the idea of shooting the door to pieces,” he said.
The door was tested out. Officers used all kinds of guns, including high-powered rifles, and shot at the door 57 times.
“No bullet made it through the door,” Ryan said.
The door, which is made up of mostly natural fiber, also has a metal detector and can alert police right away if a shooter walks into a school.
“The foam displaces and allows the powder to expand so it has no force against the other half of the door,” Ryan said.
If someone walks into a classroom with a gun, the sensor on the door would immediately alert school safety officers and local police, and all the classroom doors would close in less than two seconds.
“The classroom becomes a safe room,” he said.
At a school safety convention in Orlando this week – Ryan showed his door off to hundreds of superintendents.
“The response here is over the top,” Ryan said.
Ryan said he’s now working with the Marion County School District in Central Florida, and he said Duval County is also interested.
“My older son goes to Fletcher High School and they had a couple of scares this year with threats of having a shooting at the school, and it was really scary,” said Emily West.
Which is why this parent said she hopes a door like this will be in her son’s school very soon.
“I think that it would give a lot of parents and me and him a peace of mind, that these doors are on there that they can’t shoot through the doors,” she said.
Ryan said his goal is to make about 1,000 doors a day. The cost starts at $900 per door.