REYNOLDSBURG — The Fredericktown Community Fire District sent a group of firefighters to specialized training on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Ohio Fire Academy, to learn the different aspects of trench rescue.
“Trench rescues are not quick rescues,” OFA Deputy Superintendent Scott Walker said.
He added that the distribution of weight with plywood panels during trench rescues was necessary to protect both rescuers and victims from secondary collapse.
OFA instructors Capt. Jack Legg of Hamilton Township and Grandview Heights firefighter Martin Hafey, who between them have 58 years experience in the fire service, took the firefighters through the procedures involved in shoring up the walls of trenches that may partially collapse during construction and utility accidents.
“There shouldn’t be anybody in with the victim yet,” Legg told the group, which included members of a newly formed tactical rescue team from the Findlay Fire Department, as well as the Fredericktown firefighters.
While Hafey stayed down inside the 8-foot-deep trench giving instructions from below, Legg walked the firefighters through procedures from above, which involved firefighters constructing supports from lumber. Pieces of 2-by-4s, 4-by-4s and 6-by-6s were then hammered together or attached to expandable supports.
The supports, like some of the other equipment used, were originally designed for the construction industry and have been adapted for rescue work. Using ropes from above, the support beams were run in between the plywood walls supporting the walls of the trench of one section. Once that first section, the one around the victim, is declared a “safe zone,” a firefighter can be lowered into the trench by ladder to assess the victim and administer first aid, as well as help other firefighters begin work on shoring up the remaining walls to facilitate a rescue.
Legg explained that it is only safe to have one rescuer per safe zone, so the next firefighter can’t enter the trench until the next section of walls is shored. The process can be sped along with pneumatics supports, which rely on high-powered air to expand them, if such equipment is available to rescuers.
“Once they’ve used the pneumatics, they could probably throw this stuff in, in about 10 or 15 minutes,” Legg said.
Hafey said the pneumatics also mean that much of the work can be done without ever entering the trench, which is also safer.
Because many fire departments, such as Fredericktown and Findlay, do not carry the specialized supports needed for this type of system, the instructors made sure the firefighters knew exactly what to do with the equipment they did have available.
The Fredericktown department, because of the cooperation of local construction companies, has more equipment available to it than if it had to purchase such specialized equipment. Mast said this helps the department manage resources better, because trench rescues are rare, and the purchase of firefighting equipment for more common occurrences is expensive.
Legg assured the firefighters they would be able to make use of many things in this kind of rescue, if necessary, even if specialized supports were not always available. He urged the teams to use whatever would work for a particular situation, even if that meant improvising.
“The academy provided us with various techniques that we can utilize to adapt to whatever situation and resources are available at that particular instance,” said Mast. “No emergency scene is the same — you have to adapt to whatever we are faced with.”
