By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
On Sept. 11, 25 members of the Hays Fire Department, the Ellis County Technical Rescue Team, the Goodland Fire Department and the Sherman County Rural Fire Department gathered in Hays for their first combined training.
“The is the first time that we have ever actually worked together, so it was kind of a big deal, especially since it is on 9/11,” Detrixhe said.
Operation Western Partnership brought members of the Kansas Task Force 7, covering 18 counties in western Kansas, to learn and practice various rescue skills.
“They are the state resource out there, and we mutual aid with them,” said HFD Lt. Tim Detrixhe.
“It’s part of the state USAR — Urban Search and Rescue system,” Detrixhe said. “Urban Search and Rescue consists of things like structural collapse, high-angle rescue, low-angle rescue, trench collapse, grain entrapment, confined space, wide-area search.”
While the departments had not worked together in the past, both Detrixhe and Lt. Matthew Breininger of the Sherman County Rural Fire said it had been discussed for some time, and this training operation helps to let the various components of the group get to know each other.
During the day, responders moved through three training modules, each containing a unique but necessary part of search and rescue operations.
“We modeled it off of Hays, so the whole idea of the entire drill is a tornado struck Hays, and we have all of these scenarios that will come into play if a tornado struck.”
During the first part of the day, the group broke into two sections, with one learning about tools that could help extricate someone from a debris pile. At the same time, the other group moved through an inside maze involving crawling while wearing external air through a maze built inside a building at the training site.
The first scenario simulated a trapped man with a chemical leak in a storage facility.
“We have a victim in there,” Detrixhe said. “And we create a 'bad atmosphere.' So they are working through that scenario … integrating the two teams together.”
During that scenario, rescuers used a SABA unit. This supplied air breathing apparatus provides air to the responder during the rescue without the challenges presented by wearing external air tanks.
“It’s very similar to the air packs that we wear going into a fire … Well, if you are in a confined space, you don’t have room for that air pack, and you are limited on time,” Detrixhe said. “On a good day…your thirty-minute bottle is only going to last 20 minutes, max while you are working, and it’s bulky. So what we do is separate those two things out.”
He said theoretically, with the system, a responder could work indefinitely.
During the other scenario, the team worked to rescue an unaccounted-for victim during a minor collapse of the Hadley Center.
“That’s the search component,” Detrixhe said.
“Any structural collapse, we are going to start with searching, trying to locate our victims,” Breininger said. “So they are actually utilizing the tools and equipment they would use to go through that.”
One of those pieces of equipment is a Delsar system.
“It has essentially got six pucks that are linked in series, “Breininger said. “And there is a person with a control device. Each puck has a number assigned to it, and it will actually detect tapping from someone buried 10-15 feet under the rubble.”
He said the control util shows which unit is the closest to the sound during placement, allowing rescuers to dial into a location.
“You essentially just start moving the sensors down the pile, closer and closer, to pinpoint where somebody is at,” Breininger said. “That gives us the first indication there is a victim.”
From there, the search would move to camera systems to confirm the victim's location before the start of rescue attempts.
The last piece of the rescue would be extraction, with teams working with a core drill and a concrete saw that would be used to extricate victims.
The two teams ran those exercises separately before coming back together for the third situation.
Wrapping up the training, a full-scale exercise in their Hays Fire Department’s training tower presented the team inside with a full-scale collapse of the Hadley Center due to a tornado strike.
“We have to use the training tower as the prop to go in and get that person out,” Detrixhe said. “With the caveat that the ground floor is no go. You can’t access anything from the ground floor. So we have to figure out a way to get to the second floor to work down into the first floor, search the whole building and get them out.”
During that last scenario, the group used a new system of exterior climbing.
Once inside, structural components were secured using specialized equipment that would hold up sections of the building while rescues attempts were ongoing.
While the training was a way to help integrate the teams and learn life-saving skills, Detrixhe said the timing made the day special.
“This is athing we have been wanting to do for a long time and then we thought, this would be a good day to do it,” Detrixhe said.
