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Ladder Rescue Mishap

06/17/2010

Here is an ugly one out of Europe I believe, judging by the PPE. I liked it because it is a scenario that any of us could face, and hopefully we can learn from this one to improve the way things go for us. I for one like practicing ladder work a lot, I feel it is the only way to keep sharp on placement and height. This is a great example of when you are only going to get one chance to pick your spot, and one chance to get the height right, because as seen here, when the ladder goes into the building the people are coming down (no matter how you placed it). I think some solid advice that I have been taught is go for a shallow angle over a steep one anytime you can. Obviously this increases the chance that the butt will slip, but if we have a guy to foot the ladder or are in soft ground then why not, it may just prevent us from coming down on our backs with a victim on our chest. Anyways, here is a quick take on what we noticed in this video.     

Once one thing goes wrong it all starts going down hill. You can see they come up short with the ladder and place it at a real steep angle. They go up to make the attempt anyways, right about the time the victim decides enough is enough and lets go. They still have one victim hanging (who has been hanging for a long time) who we can almost count on following suite with the first. To add insult to injury you notice one of the Engine guys stretching hose falls onto his back  over one of the Ladder guys that is lying on the ground. 

 Here is a little bit of the time breakdown: 
1:08 – Camera zooms back far enough you can see the fire on the far right..Do you think that is a stairwell due to the uneven window height?
1:20 – First victim falls (that is a long time to hold your body wieght….at least for me it is)
1:55 – 2nd firefighter starts to go up for the rescue, you can see him hesitate a few times, which makes me think he can tell they are about to fall.
2:00 – Engine guy falls over the injured firefighter, also the 2nd victim falls taking out another firefighter.   

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  What do you think? There is some good discussion points. Ladder placement, ladder height, smoke conditions, and fire location. Good video, I came across it through an email that one of the Brotherhood Instructors sent out (A. Brassard), thanks to him and whoever else had a part in getting this video out there.

Categories: 5. Ladder Work
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Comments: 7 Comments

Door Size Up #4

03/26/2010

This version of the door size up series is a little different than our previous ones. Below we have multiple doors that have a few things in common. Sometimes the most important part of door size up is recognizing when to move on to another door. Obviously some buildings may have all of their doors that are equally secured and they will all give you trouble. However some doors like the ones below would have been your worst choice to start your forcible entry operations.

These doors all have signs telling us that they are not used very often, or not at all. If they appear they have not been used in years, there is probably a reason. Sometimes we just have to trust what the size up is telling us and move on. Here are the examples.

Door  1

The first door has obvious signs on the outside that it is not being used any more. You can see it has two pieces of steel welded to the frame, covering the outward swinging door. The other side of this door has been covered and walled over. In the lower picture the door would have been behind the shirts that are hanging.

Door #2 

This door would have appeared to be pretty straight forward from the outside and has common security features showing. Luckily someone tried to warn us on the door that this is a poor choice to make entry. I am glad to see someone else spells like I do. The door you see in the interior picture is not the one we are looking for. The door we are sizing up is actually behind the shelves containing the cups and bowls.

Door # 3

Lastly we have an aluminum stile storefront door that has become a blockade. This was a side entrance of the building and is obviously rarely used, if at all. This would be easy to identify unless smoke had stained the windows, but it shouldn’t take us long to see this one isn’t a great choice. Could we get through these doors?…..Sure we could eventually, but on these particular buildings it would not have been the best choice, and it means we failed to notice key size up points that would have clued us in to their potential difficulty.

Thanks goes out to our fellow “South Siders” from Engine Co 11 for some of the photos and insight for this post.

Categories: 1. Forcible Entry
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Portable Ladder or Portable Stairs?

03/06/2010

 

Here is an idea to keep in the back of your mind if you encounter the same problem. These companies had a fire on the top floor of a 1  1/2 story house a few months ago.  The house is located in a neighborhood on the eastern edge of downtown that has its fair share of urban decay. When advancing the line they found the stairway leading up had some damage. Enough damage to require some assistance making the top floor. The Engine had pulled back and advanced up an exterior ladder that was in place to the top floor and made a knock down. While the Engine made their way up, the Truck company was able to place a 16′ ladder in place over the area of the stairs that was damaged. This provided a sturdy and safe way to secure another route of egress for the Engine upstairs, and access for the Truck that ended up helping them confine the fire to its room of origin. Once the fire was knocked down it turned into the main pathway for the remainder of the incident.  This is where remembering little tricks that have been passed down to us pays off. Well done on thinking creatively and looking out for each other with a little ingenuity. Thanks for sending in the photos for everyone to share.

Categories: 5. Ladder Work
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Comments: 3 Comments

Video Training: Structure Fire With Rescue

02/07/2010

This video starts out a little slow because it shows the response  to the fire, however if you skip to the on-scene footage it is worth the wait.  The truck arrives in the video at about the 1:30 mark.  This video has been around for a couple years and provides some good training footage, it originates in Columbus Ohio. The first photo we have posted just gives you a clear day time view of the street and occupancy.

A couple things to notice in the video. It appears that when the rig arrives there is already at least 1 engine and 1 truck on scene. The engine is getting a line flaked out and the truck appears to be getting ready to make a search of the floor above. There does seem to be a slight delay in getting water to the line, with that said we are not sure if it was a problem at the pump, or just a normal delay from performing a reverse lay to the hydrant. The video captures some good fire development and the speed at which it can be knocked down. We will let the video speak for itself.

Something that stands out to us is how much everyone is counting on each other. The truck crew is heavily relying on the engine to make a knock down and the engine crew is relying on the truck crew to make the rescue so they can focus on extinguishment. Obviously the citizen (unconsciously) is relying on both crews if they have any chance of making it out of this building.  If either crew would have not done their part on this fire,  the outcome could have been much different. From our research we found that  the first arriving units had no reports of victims trapped.  This victim was pulled out unconscious with some 2nd degree burns but had reportedly survived the fire.

We welcome any thoughts or discussion on this video, please keep it productive and related to learning as much as we can.  I think we can agree that videos only give us a small look at these scenes (that we were not on) and it becomes very easy to pick apart the things that went wrong. However they present a greater opportunity to discuss lessons learned, what went right and what we may change next time.

We think this specific video brings up some excellent points such as: Search priorities? Ladder work/Egress ladders? Where do you take the 2nd line? Ventilation on this structure? Bringing your own water or not?….and many more.

Categories: 3.Search/Rescue/VES
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Comments: 5 Comments

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