Archives for rescues
Fatal Middletown OH Technical Rescue- One Firefighter Pulled From Hole Not Breathing
A Middletown, Ohio Captain was pulled out of a manhole early this morning unconscious and not breathing after attempting to rescue a city worker. According to initial reports, Captain Todd Wissemeyer, a 20-year veteran of the department was flown to Miami Valley Hospital.
At about 8:30am ET this morning, officials say that three city workers were preparing a sewer site for work, but had no plans to descend down the shaft. When one of the workers opened the manhole cover and looked inside, he was apparently overcome and fell down into the hole.
“It appears he was standing over the hole,” said Deputy Police Chief Mark Hoffman in a press conference at the site. “Whatever came out, he went in.”
Captain Wissemeyer and his partner, Fire Marshal Bob Hess, both attempted a rescue but were also overcome by the fumes. Hess was transported by ground ambulance to a local hospital and his condition is also unknown at this time. The 32-year old city worker succumbed to his injuries.
There normally would be no gasses in hole according to authorities, as it was just a sanitary sewer line. The investigation is continuing and more information will be provided as it becomes available.
Please keep these men, their families and their department in your thoughts and prayers as you continue your day.
Posted in News, Rescues, Special Operations
They found their brother.
The body of a Glasgow, WV firefighter was located just after noon on Friday, following nearly a week of searching after he was swept away while attempting a water rescue in Raleigh County.
Donald “Donnie” Adkins, 32, was in a rescue boat with Glasgow Volunteer Fire Department Chief Marty Blankenship and another firefighter near Beaver when the boat tipped over about at about 1:30 a.m. last Saturday.
A freak rainstorm had inundated the area last weekend, forcing numerous residents to be rescued from their attics and trees near their homes. Flood waters were so high that rescuers were forced to cut through utility lines in order to affect many of the rescues, according to Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper.
Donald “Donnie” Adkins with his sister Renee Coleman, in a photo submitted by the Glasgow Volunteer Fire Department.
“It is with deep sadness that we accept the loss of Glasgow Firefighter Donald Adkins,” Carper said in a news release. “While Kanawha County mourns this loss, we respect Donald’s bravery and sacrifice. I also wish to commend the hundreds of volunteers throughout the state, including the State Fire Marshal Sterling Lewis, countless firefighters, EMS, law enforcement, the National Guard and the hundreds of other volunteers who risked their own personal safety in this selfless act of recovery of Donald Adkins who was recovered in Piney Creek, about 4.5 miles from where the boat capsized on Beaver Creek this past Saturday.”
Kanawha County Fire Coordinator C.W. Sigman said for several days this week, there were close to 100 people searching the Gauley River and its tributaries in an attempt to locate and recover Donnie Adkins.
Sigman led the search team that located the body. “He’s downstream in a pile of brush. They’re trying to get him out with chainsaws. There’s a lot of huge brush and tree limbs to cut through to get access to him.”
“It’s in a very inaccessible spot. It’s hard to get to when the water was up,” Sigman said. “When the water went down, it looked like a likely spot, and there he was.”
Adkins was with the Glasgow department for about three years and was a firefighter in Rand before that, Blankenship said.
He had two children and was also like a father to his girlfriend’s daughter, Blankenship said. All are between the ages of 5 and 8, he said.
Adkins had lost his job March 12, the day before he lost his life.
“Donnie was a very loved individual,” Blankenship said. “He was just a good all-around person.”
Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper said he wanted to commend all of the firefighters and other rescuers who helped with the search, as well as Gov. Joe Manchin, who also lent his support.
“While Kanawha County morns this loss, we respect Donald’s bravery and sacrifice,” Carper said. “We should be reminded that these individuals put their own personal safety on the line each and every day to protect us all.”
Posted in Brotherhood, In the Line of Duty, Line of Duty, LODD, News, Rescues, Special Operations
Chicago FD rescues two of their own in this awesome 1980 video
I ran across this video made in 1980.
Chicago Fire Department rescues two of their own the old-fashioned way-
climb on up and drag them out.
fire building 27th and Dearborn
The Ghosts of Fires Past
In January of 2002, a fatal fire broke out in the Plaza on DeWitt condominium hi-rise at 260 East Chestnut in Chicago. In that fire several firefighters were injured and residents were rescued from the building’s roof where they were forced to flee to escape severe smoke conditions.
A few mornings ago as reported here on Fire Daily, history repeated itself. As the first brutally cold and windy night of winter charged into the city, fully one-third of the on-duty personnel of Chicago’s firefighters were again called to the Plaza on DeWitt. The 36th floor fire was again fatal; again eight firefighters were injured; several residents again were rescued from the building’s roof where they were forced to escape severe smoke conditions.
A little over a week ago on December 3, we all took pause to remember the Worcester Cold Storage Warehouse fire of ten years ago. Six firefighters lost their lives that day on an interior rescue for squatters believed to be inside the old building.
Yesterday, history again repeated itself.
A two-alarm blaze in a vacant South Boston warehouse yesterday was eerily reminiscent of the Worcester fire. Boston Fire Rescue Company 1 was advised that the building was known to be occupied by squatters and people may be trapped inside. They entered, split into two groups and began their search. Two of Boston’s bravest tripped and fell into FOUR FEET of standing water during the effort.
One of the firefighters was able to feel his way up some stairs and found the lone occupant who had become disoriented in the heavy smoke conditions. That firefighter, 63-year old John Smith, a FORTY YEAR VETERAN FIREFIGHTER. led the man outside to waiting EMS workers.
The report from the Boston Globe describes the scene:
“Fire officials said the rescued man was one of several people living in the warehouse. Inside the building, an intricately organized squatters’ residence could be seen, with beds, televisions, microwaves, and even a stocked kitchen setup, complete with a spice rack. Fire officials said yesterday that the legally vacant building was even wired for electricity.
South Boston is home to an array of warehouses and industrial-type buildings, and fire officials know that homeless people gather here.
“Since Worcester, there’s been a heightened awareness among firefighters’’ as they go about their searches,” (Boston Fire Department Spokesman Steve) MacDonald said.
Smith said his crew stayed focused on saving anyone who might be inside the warehouse yesterday. “This is a prime spot for homeless people at this time of year,’’ he said. “Inside these buildings, they can set up quite a bit of housekeeping and stay there for quite some time.’’
The firefighters in Massachusetts and Chicago have witnessed history repeating itself.
Because they applied knowledge gained from these previous incidents, they were better prepared to handle the next incident.
Here is tangible proof that the Worcester 6 an others like them have not died in vain.
We have learned from their tragedy and all become better prepared to handle the next call where history will invariably repeat itself.
Again.
Stay stoked!
-J
If We Do What We’ve Always Done, We’ll Get What We’ve Always Gotten…
I see that NIOSH reports have popped up on the radar of the blogosphere recently. Frankly, I’m surprised at the heat a few have been giving them. Maybe I’ve been missing something (it’s happened before). So I took a closer look.
We already know that heart attacks and traffic accidents are the main murderers of us firefighters, so I’m sure we’ve already dedicated the necessary resources to firefighter health and safety initiatives and accident scene safeguards to keep these killers from having free reign over our troops.
Right?
So, I went to the Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation Reports page from NIOSH and randomly picked 5 of the reports with deaths involving fire suppression. I was looking for patterns. Guess what I found….
NIOSH Report 2008-26
A residential basement fire had been burning for over 30 minutes. A crew was directed to enter the first floor to perform horizontal ventilation and found a spongy floor. The last (victim) of the four-man crew was just about out when the floor collapsed into the basement on top of working crews. Heavy smoke conditions hampered efforts to locate the victim and he died on the scene.
Among the NIOSH recommendations:
Sizeup, Risk/Gain “ensure that the incident commander (IC) conducts a 360 degree size-up which includes risk versus gain analysis prior to committing interior operations and continues risk assessments throughout the operations”
SOP’s/SOG’s- “ensure that standard operating procedures are established for a basement fire”
Coordinated Ventilation- “ensure that proper ventilation is done to improve interior conditions and is coordinated with the interior attack”
TIC- “ensure that interior crews are equipped with a thermal imaging camera”
RIT/RIC- “ensure that Rapid Intervention Teams are staged and ready”
NIOSH Report 2008-34
One of only three firefighters on the scene, the victim entered a burning residence alone with a partially-charged 1 ½ inch line and became lost in thick-black smoke, radioing for help from the other two. They couldn’t locate him, a flashover occurred, and the home became fully engulfed. A cop found him an hour later.
Among the NIOSH recommendations:
Size-up, Risk/Gain- “ensure that officers and fire fighters know how to evaluate risk versus gain and perform a thorough scene size-up before initiating interior strategies and tactics”
SOP’s/SOG’s- “develop, implement, and enforce written standard operating procedures (SOPs) for fireground operations”
Staffing- “ensure that adequate numbers of apparatus and fire fighters are on scene before initiating an offensive fire attack in a structure fire”
Coordinated Ventilation- “ensure that properly coordinated ventilation is conducted on structure fires”
RIT/RIC- “ensure that a rapid intervention team (RIT) is established and available at structure fires”
SCBA- “ensure fire fighters are trained in essential self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) and emergency survival skills”
Mayday- “ensure that protocols are developed on issuing a Mayday so that fire fighters and dispatch centers know how to respond”
NIOSH Report 2008-08
30 minutes into a residential fire, crews had been pulled out. A decision was made to send a crew back in to extinguish the fire. A crew of 3 (A/C, Capt, FF) made their way into the basement of the burning structure with an 1¾ line. One by one they evacuated due to conditions. The third never came up the stairs. RIT was activated but repelled by the heat. Victim found an hour later.
Among the NIOSH recommendations:
Risk vs. Gain- “ensure that the Incident Commander continuously evaluates the risks versus gain when determining whether the fire suppression operation will be offensive or defensive“
SOP’s/SOG’s- “review, revise as necessary, and enforce standard operating guidelines (SOGs) to include specific procedures for basement fires and two-in/ two-out procedures“
TIC- “enforce standard operating guidelines (SOGs) regarding thermal imaging camera (TIC) use during interior operations“
Mayday- “ensure that fire fighters are trained on initiating Mayday radio transmissions immediately when they are in distress, and/or become lost or trapped“
NIOSH Report 2008-06
Without the protection of a charged hoseline, a Lt and FF (victim) were searching a 2-story residence for a trapped occupant. They did not know where the victim was and had no TIC. Conditions deteriorated, trapping the two on the second floor. The LT exited the front door and RIT was deployed to get the victim. Both were hospitalized and the victim succumbed to burn injuries 5 days later.
Among the NIOSH recommendations:
Size-up- “ensure the Incident Commander receives pertinent information during the size-up (i.e., type of structure, number of occupants in the structure, etc.) from occupants on scene and that information is relayed to crews upon arrival”
SOP’s/SOG’s- “develop, implement, and enforce written standard operating procedures (SOPs) for fireground operations”
Coordinated Ventilation- “ensure ventilation is coordinated with interior fireground operations”
TIC- “ensure that fire fighters conducting an interior search have a thermal imaging camera”
Mayday- “ensure that Mayday protocols are developed and followed”
NIOSH Report 2007-32
Two firefighters died while conducting an interior attack to locate, confine, and extinguish a fire located in the cockloft of a restaurant. One victim had been flowing water into the cockloft from the kitchen, another had been checking for fire extension in the main dining area. At about 5 minutes in, a rapid fire event occurred.
Among the NIOSH recommendations:
Size-up- Risk vs. Gain- “ensure that the incident commander conducts an initial size-up and risk assessment of the incident scene before beginning interior fire fighting operations and continually evaluates the conditions to determine if the operations should become defensive”
SOP’s/SOG’s- “develop, implement and enforce written standard operating procedures (SOPs) that address the hazards and define the strategies and tactics to be used while operating at specific structures known as “taxpayers”
Coordinated Ventilation- “ensure that fire fighters understand the influence of ventilation on fire behavior and coordinate with interior fire suppression operations”
RIT/RIC- “ensure that a rapid intervention crew (RIC) / rapid intervention team (RIT) is established and available to immediately respond to emergency rescue incidents”
TIC- “use thermal imaging cameras (TICs) during the initial size-up and search phases of a fire”
Any patterns?
Size-up, Risk vs. Gain- Does your first in crew perform a 360 and report an accurate size up of conditions to all others? Is a risk vs. gain assessment actually made? Are your initial tactics based upon these findings?
Why not? Didn’t you try to implement the NIOSH recommendations to keep from killing your firefighters?
Are your SOP’s/SOG’s current to the ever-changing tasks being performed at your incidents? Do you follow them? Do you even have any?
Why not? Didn’t you try to implement the NIOSH recommendations to keep from killing your firefighters?
Is ventilation performed early and integrated with your interior attack? Or has ventilation worked its way down to fifth or sixth on your list of priorities? After all, it will eventually vent itself.
Why not? Didn’t you try to implement the NIOSH recommendations to keep from killing your firefighters?
Is a RIT/RIC established early on? If you don’t have the personnel to form a RIT/RIC, do you have a mutual aid response to give you the number of firefighters needed to operate safely?
Why not? Didn’t you try to implement the NIOSH recommendations to keep from killing your firefighters?
Does your department have at least one Thermal Imaging Camera? It’s been called the best thing since SCBA in many firefighting circles. You have SCBA, right? Does your department know to call a Mayday early? Too macho to call it? Does EVERYONE ON THE SCENE know what to do when a Mayday is called?
Why not? Didn’t you try to implement the NIOSH recommendations to keep from killing your firefighters?
WHY ARE WE NOT FOLLOWING THROUGH?
Are the reports too difficult to understand? Perhaps we need to dumb them down or fluff them up? Fine. I’m all for whatever it takes.
But let’s not forget that the reports are just that- reports. We need to make the changes, NIOSH ain’t gonna do that for us.
So read the reports, see how they killed our brothers, and take a hard look at how you and your department operate.
THEN IMPLEMENT THE CHANGES YOU NEED TO KEEP YOUR GUYS ALIVE.
Because if we continue to do it the same way, we’ll get what we’ve always gotten. Another NIOSH report with the same ol’ stuff.
So These Two Chevy’s Meet on the Street…
So I see this commercial pitting the old Chevy against the new one and my mind begins to wander -as it often does- about how much has changed in the cars over the years and how we perform extrication. (cue dream-sequence music).
Remember when we had crashes that involved those nice old cars like this ’59 Bel Air that just needed a crowbar and a come-along to remove the body, err victim, err patient?
Nope, neither do I- I’m not that old. Yet.
But it wasn’t too long ago that crumple zones never existed and an air bag was just another derogatory term used to describe a (insert noun here).
Then yesterday, I ran across a post from Smitty at Firefighter900.com
He offered up a host of useful links firefighters can use to enhance their knowledge of the dangers of certain vehicles involved in crashes. Automakers have done a nice job of supplying volumes of information full of safety warnings and diagrams of various systems on the newer cars today. But there is so damn much of it!
My department has a disproportionate amount of crashes which involve expensive luxury vehicles (do you have any Grey Poupon?). When these new-fangled wiz-bang auto machines with their “pre-tensioned this” and “airbag that” first came out, it took a little bit of time for us to realize that vehicle extrication would never be the same. New hazards became part of our crash scenes year after year. Sadly, many our brothers and sisters across the nation were injured or worse at what we used to call a “typical” extrication.
Basic information on these new safety systems was easy enough to learn. However the vast variety of new components and their placement based upon the manufacturer makes our job so much more difficult.
Knowing that old VW batteries were located under the back seat was about the extent of “extra” knowledge needed back in the days of disco. Today, it’s impossible to remember everything about every vehicle. Pulling up on a crash scene and knowing just where to cut and pry and how to “make-safe” each component of each vehicle has become an increasingly difficult yet no less necessary.
So what’s a jake to do?
Short of getting that Dex guy to sit on the roof of the vehicle to give you pointers, we’re left with few options. So let’s start with a few suggestions to help you prepare for that next crash between a Chevy Equinox and an ‘09 Altima Hybrid:
First, does your agency have SOG’s/SOP’s that are up-to-date with the new automotive systems? Take a look at them now and update them as needed to keep pace with new changes as they are introduced.
Some departments have on-scene technology available that enable the rescue crew to pop the VIN of a vehicle into a computer. A diagram can be spit out and taken to the vehicles to develop and implement the safe tactics needed to mitigate the situation unique for that vehicle. This is a great way to utilize mobile computing if available to your agency.
Before the incident, train by reviewing basic safety measures for hybrid vehicles, natural gas-powered vehicle, and electric vehicles. You’ll never know all the specifics, but you should definitely be aware the basics of how to safely disable and power down each type of system.
At the crash, ensure that the scene is safe now and will remain safe throughout your rescue. Disable systems early to avoid problems later. Realize it will take more than just “taking the battery”.
Ensure the rescue team has one leader and a plan. We’ve all seen the cluster that develops when we start tearing apart the car without one leader and a plan. Never assume who is in charge of the extrication. Never begin until everyone is on the same page.
Work as a team, constantly communicating with each other, constantly offering suggestions. The guy doing the cutting may not see what the guy inside sees. Remember, with each step in the rescue process new challenges may crop up. Talk constantly.
Always have a Plan B. Be fluid. Don’t be locked into a plan that should be changed as your rescue progresses. Focus is paramount, but tunnel vision is poison.
If you are doing the cutting/prying/spreading, carry a small hand tool in your pocket that will quickly allow you to “peel-n-peek” before you bring in your big guns. Removing cheap plastic to glance inside is a small investment in time with great benefits to your safety.
As should be the case for any incident, perform a quick and informal critique at the company level once back at your house. Review your team’s actions. Identify new issues that arose. Above all, encourage input from everyone and address positive criticisms for what they are- opportunities to improve.
Change is inevitable. We accept that. Keeping sharp on new challenges is a part of developing that certain “pride in company”.
Remember, this job is a helluva lot more fun when you know what you’re doing!
Stay stoked!
-Jeremy Black, FireDaily.com
Stop by Smitty’s post for all the links to many of the manufacturer’s emergency response guides. Don’t’ forget to drop him a line with some thanks. Be prepared though, because there are 42 separate links based on make, and model and year, and whatever. And for dessert, there’s a link for the Mercedes Benz Emergency Response Guide that clocks in at 120 pages!
Bon Appétit!
Posted in Fire Rescue Topics, Rescues, training-fire-rescue-topics
Extremely Local News
I’ve always been intrigued by extremely local news, and will attempt to shine a spotlight on stories that come our way that would never normally get wide distribution.
WISTV.com posted such a story on their site late last night about a certain rescue in tiny Olar, SC.
Give it a look. It’s a pleasant change from all the press the bad apples have been getting lately. It’s also an example of positive publicity you can’t buy these days.
Stay Stoked!
-J.
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