RICHMOND, Va. (May 3, 2011) -- Six members of the post Fire and Emergency Services department participated as members of the Crater Regional Technical Rescue Team in the 17th Rescue Challenge, a noncompetitive fire and rescue event being held this week that serves to better the skills of fire and emergency personnel around the state.
Franklin Tanner, assistant chief, FES, said Rescue Challenge fills a void for firefighters and emergency personnel to share ideas and improve skills.
"This is a way for people to get together and share in a team-building experience," he said during an event Tuesday in Richmond. "We also get to exercise the equipment we don't normally use."
Rescue Challenge 2011 began Monday and will conclude today. Richmond-area fire and emergency service departments hosted the event that included a high-angle rescue, confined space, trench rescue and heavy lifting and moving. The Ordnance School's Tank Recovery Complex site hosted the heavy lifting and moving event.
The 23-member Crater team - composed of six personnel from Fort Lee and others from Hopewell, Petersburg, Colonial Heights and Prince George County - took part in several events including a high-angle rescue at Richmond's Perdue Chicken Plant Tuesday. In that event, team members were required to perform a rescue operation in which a worker was injured inside a building - but not just any structure.
"We had to go in and go up about 130 feet into a grain silo," said Tanner, "and then go down approximately 30 feet inside the silo to remove a victim."
Once the victim was removed, personnel rigged a system of ropes and pulleys to raise the victim, a 175-pound dummy, out of the silo onto a balcony, said Tanner.
"Then we had to build a high-angled line from the top of the silo down to the ground to allow for an attendant and victim to be safely lowered," said Tanner.
The entire operation took about an hour to complete. Tanner said that although the Crater team trains on similar scenarios, this particular training provides a more robust training opportunity on many different levels.
"It's not an event that benefits only a few people," he said. "Everyone gets involved at some level in these scenarios."
Teams entered into this year's Rescue Challenge also performed other training scenarios with central themes like parachutist in the tower, man in a pipe - trench collapse, flight of fear - indoor rope rescue in the dark and one in which rescuers were required to ascend 305 feet atop an amusement park ride at Kings Dominion.
Fort Lee firefighter-medic Jeremy Ashworth, who was participating in Rescue Challenge for the second time, said the event is unique.
"I think it is a great experience and a great training experience," he said. "We don't see these things every day. It basically puts great tools in our bag just in case we are put under those circumstances."
Ashworth also said the event helps to strengthen the Crater team, one that Fort Lee is obligated to support and one that it may have to call upon for on-post emergencies.
"We're just one department," said Ashworth of Fort Lee's department. "There are only so many people on duty every day. It takes more than one shift of guys at one fire station to accomplish something like this (the high-angled line). We know that once we put out the call, we know we got people with expertise from all over - Fort Lee, Petersburg, Colonial Heights, Prince George and Hopewell - to help."
Other teams to compete in Recue Challenge were Roanoke Regional, Fort Belvoir/Fort Eustis, Arlington/Prince William County, Fairfax/Alexandria, Tidewater Regional and a team from Maryland.
The Technical Rescue Association of Virginia sponsors the event.
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