|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home  Extrication Events Roanoke Rapids Performs Res-Q-Jack Training Session
|
Roanoke Rapids Performs Res-Q-Jack Training Session |
|
|
 May 21st, 2009
Lance Martin
Click Here For Original Story
Another Monday morning and the same thing for the past two months — get up, go train.
Only for members of the Roanoke Valley Rescue Squad and the Roanoke Rapids Fire Department, this training day ritual isn’t drudgery, it’s lifesaving.
“It sharpens our skills. It helps us work together,” fire department Battalion Chief Billy Allen said to the rescue squad. He, Chad Turner and Jayme Shelburne learned vehicle stabilization and extrication techniques from Chris Strickland of the rescue squad, “We get to know each other.”
In the two months the two departments have trained together, the fire department has gone from the classroom to the field, getting familiar with the equipment and techniques Roanoke Valley uses when its personnel goes to accident scenes.
Strickland took them through the paces Monday of using a tool called the Res-Q-Jack, a jack which lifts a vehicle off of the pavement to allow rescue workers to pull an entrapped victim safely from a vehicle.
Usually the fire department is the first to arrive at a scene, Strickland said. The extra training the fire department receives will help them with more advanced techniques.
Should the rescue squad be first at the scene, there is another advantage when the fire department arrives, Strickland said. “We’ve got an extra set of hands. They shouldn’t have to ask any questions.”
The classes last two hours with firefighters from Station 2 coming in the morning and those from Station 1 training in the afternoon.
The firefighters move through their exercises well as Strickland observes. “I like the way y’all did the chain,” he tells Turner and Shelburne as they secure the Res-Q-Jack to a wrecked van. “Y’all did fine.”
Turner, who received extrication training as a volunteer firefighter in Gaston, said he doesn’t mind going through the training again. “It helps you be prepared at a wreck scene,” he said. “We can have it prepared when the cutters get there. It’s just good to learn how each department does it.”
Brian Hux, rescue technician supervisor for the rescue squad, said the training is a continuation of the cooperation the two departments have demonstrated over the last few years.
The training came in handy Monday night when a car flipped on East Fifth Street and was perched precariously over a ditch. While the driver got out of the vehicle, his car was in danger of falling onto another vehicle.
Using the training they received, the fire department and rescue squad used the Res-Q-Jack to stabilize the vehicle. “It was a hairy situation,” Hux said. “They worked together to stabilize the car.”
|
|
