ST. LOUIS – Dangerous police work in the St. Louis area is being made safer. It’s a matter of heroes helping heroes. 

In an exclusive report, FOX 2 was with St. Charles County Regional SWAT Wednesday, a training mission far more realistic than most.  

About 70 SWAT members in full gear went through a drug warrant and barricaded subject scenario at a neighborhood house in St. Peters. They were there because of the guy who completely renovated the place, which is currently up for rent. 

Dusty Sanders rehabs houses. He’s retired from the St. Charles County Ambulance District. He was also a St. Charles Count Regional SWAT medic. 

Five years ago, the generic steel-framed building where they used to train suddenly became unavailable.

Sanders, who had begun rehabbing houses as a side job, volunteered a possible solution.

“I just kind of silently raised my hand in the back and said, ‘Hey, I own houses in the neighborhood. I have several vacant that we’re rehabbing right now. Why don’t we move our training there and continue our day like nothing ever happened?’” he recalled.

His houses have now hosted more than 100 training missions for local and state police along with U.S. Marshals.

“It definitely is more real life. We’ll take any house or office building we can get to better prepare ourselves,” Lt. Ryan Streck, St. Charles Co. Regional SWAT commander, said.

“All the little nooks and crannies, door behind a door, cabinets that you can hide people in… every house, every floorplan, every doorway is different. They don’t know what to expect on the other side of it. It makes training way more powerful for them,” Sanders said.

Sanders is on the board of the St. Louis Hero Network, which promotes the businesses of first responders and military families. 

“We specialize in tying the heroes in our community back to the businesses that are locally owned and operated by said heroes,” he said.

It has proved to be a great match for FasterHouse, which buys and rehabs St. Louis area houses and now offers them for training, too. All of those involved are working toward the same goal.

“Resolve any situation peacefully and as quickly as possible,” Streck said. “Everyone out alive.”

“We’re just one piece of it.  We just have the real estate,” Lucas Walls of FasterHouse added. “We buy a lot of houses. A lot of them are vacant, so we can use it for our training, which is super cool.”

The neighbors watching from across the street certainly agreed.