SPOKANE, Wash. — To finish out 2023, Spokane Valley Fire Department and Spokane County Fire District 9 participated in a multi-day training exercise with a technical rescue team.
A technical rescue “involves using specialized tools and skills for various rescue scenarios, including complex and commercial vehicle extrication, confined space rescue, high-angle rope rescue, trench rescue, and structural collapse rescue.”
Firefighters were put in three different scenarios.
First they conducted below-grade rescues which utilize “a portable tripod as a high point for raising and lowering rescuers and facilitating victim removal.”
Then a scenario had a victim on a roof with an arm trapped in machinery. Firefighters have to “addressed the entangled arm before packaging the patient for removal to the ground, using the aerial platform as a high point.”
Finally, firefighter had to set up a high-angle rope system to lower a firefighter to a mock construction worker with a limb entrapment on exterior machinery.
Each of these technical rescues rely on firefighter knowledge of equipment capabilities and limitations. This drill was created to help them become comfortable with the equipment so they can safely conduct these rescues when necessary.
Our Spokane Valley and Spokane County firefighter are working to keep our community safe each and everyday!
