By Sarah Gooding
Pittsburg Morning Sun – November 11, 2013
Arma/Crawford County District No. 2 firefighter Chad Burns practices evacuating through a 16 inch basement window while in full gear with help from firefighter Tom Maslen. Area fire departments trained on how to handle tricky situations so they would have tools and strategies to use during an emergency. SARAH GOODING/THE MORNING SUN
Pittsburg firefighter Will Holt is evacuated from a house through the roof via a rope system that would be used for basement rescues in situations where a firefighter had fallen and might or might not be unconscious. SARAH GOODING/THE MORNING SUN
In a life-or-death situation, training can make all the difference.
About 20 firefighters from around the region spent their Saturday learning rapid intervention techniques to get themselves or their fellow firefighters out of dangerous situations in the event of a fire.
“The tendency, is if you find yourself in a bad situation, you panic,” said Darren Mullen, a firefighter from Wichita who helped lead the training.
He said the training gives firefighters the tools to help via a walk-through experience of what it’s like to get out of small windows, to be entangled in wiring, to have to be rescued out of a basement and to have to carry an injured fellow firefighter up a flight of stairs.
Mullen said the dangers to firefighters during an event go beyond heat and smoke and include the challenges of being in a new place where it can be dark and confusing.
For the Arma Fire Department, the opportunity to host training of this caliber with other area fire districts was helpful.
“This is the first one we’ve hosted,” said Tom Maslen, a firefighter in Arma. “For Arma being a small department, this is a great opportunity.”
“It gives the other departments the opportunity to train with each other, and the training has been awesome,” he said.
Training began Friday evening with two hours of lecture and videos and some prop training, and continued
Firefighters from Arma, Baker Township, Columbus, Girard and Pittsburg then spent their Saturday morning around the Arma/Crawford County District No. 2 fire station working their way through a series of simulation props, then took the skills to an old house and practiced each situation under more realistic circumstances.
“We have a house available,” said Mullen. “We’re going to take the skills we practiced here through some true-life scenarios.”
Maslen said the morning’s prop training had been intense and the afternoon would be even more so.
“Everybody has worked up a good sweat,” he said. “The training has been exceptional.”
Chad Cox, vice president of the FOOLS of Oz, the group that offered the training, said the group specializes in passing along knowledge.
“Our biggest thing that we teach is our basic firefighting skills,” he said. “These guys are all here to learn.”
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