Friday, May 29, 2009

Training day




Not exactly what I was expecting for today, but I can roll with the punches so it's ok. I came in this morning and was called into a meeting with both of my captains. We discussed the things I've been limited in doing since being transferred here, and what they plan to do to get me as well prepared for my next promotion. It's nice to know but understand my standpoint and are backing me all the way.

We got the trucks checked off and relaxed for a few minutes before pulling the trucks around back. We pulled all the extrication equipment off both units.

We have an old car sitting behind the station that has already been cut on a few times. All the glass is gone, the tires are flat, the hood has been cut, and 3 of the 4 doors have been forced open.

It started with me giving the sizeup (what I saw, establish command, etc). I was also asked what I'd do and have other crews do once they arrived. We put on all our gear and cranked the power plants.

I had to hook up 2 tools using the hose reel and manifold, then we tested how it affected the pressure on the tools when used at the same time.

Finally, I was handed a haligan and told to create a purchase point to remove the door that was still attached. I created an opening and grabbed the "jaws". Why are those damn things so heavy?? It took quite a few attempts of sticking the tips in and making little to no progress before I finally got a good spread. I haven't been able to use the tools much since the academy so I had to stumble a bit on the best way to do things. With some help, the door was opened.

We switched the other set of tools to the cutters and I got to cut 2 posts with the sawz-all, another tool I've never used before. It's a lot harder and takes so much longer than the hydraulic tools.

We removed the roof, and I used the jaws to remove the drivers door, the passenger side door was already off. We then made relief cuts and rolled the dash.

We played around with the tools for a bit longer before putting everything away. We did have to remove one of the hydraulic lines from service though, the rubber seal was stuck halfway out of it after we disconnected everything. Our larger ram was also tagged for not retracting properly.

We ran a call later that was a multi-car collision on the Interstate with 1 rollover. The patient lost a lot of skin on their hand/wrist, and it's a good reason why not to hang your arm out the window while driving.

Only other thing is we just had a random civilian bring us a new flag for our pole out front. The old one is looking tired and our supply guys are slower than molasses about getting us a new one. He said he noticed it a few weeks ago. It's sad, really, when a civilian has to spend their money to help a fire station get a new flag. We had a guy here before that made sure we got new flags in a timely manner, and that the old ones were properly retired.

3 comments:

Sandra said...

Good to hear you got out and were able to use all the equipment - I recently took our department's ERT/SWAT course (which is mandatory for all VPD canine handlers) and had to breach a door with a battering ram. All was good until we figured out my particular door was reinforced with approx one million freakin screws!!

To make a very long story short, I breached the door. With no help. But oh man, was my back killing me the next day!

So, I totally understand what it;s like to be a woman in a "man's job", and kudos on the blog!

Firelady said...

I'm jealous, your K9 is beautiful!

And I learned a very important lesson during training with a SWAT team a couple months ago, explosive entry is awesome. I can't say I've ever used a ram though, we have the luxury of enough time to try kicking or a haligan and axe.

Be safe out there

Jess said...

I can definitely relate to the Jaws being to darn heavy... That's why I like our Combi tool, it's not too good for heavy rescue, but it does the job for simple entrapments.