| On Friday June 2nd, 2006 Firefighter/Paramedic Faryniak and Firefighter/EMT Grossman traveled to Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania to participate in the annual Huntingdon County Fire Training Weekend. Training was put on by the Bucks County Community College and was held at the Huntingdon Area Middle School in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania.
The weekend started off with a long rainy drive. Upon traveling through Lancaster, Firefighter/Paramedic Faryniak and Firefighter/EMT Grossman came upon two separete auto accidents, one reported with entrapment and a vehicle overturned. Our members were first to arrive and rendered EMS care until responding units went onscene. After clearing the scenes the trip continued.
Saturday's training began with 4 hours of classroom based training. Members learned how to tie knots, tie off Stokes Baskets, the dynamics of different haul systems, and different hardware used with rope rescue. Followed by the morning classroom session, members were treated to lunch in the school cafeteria.
Saturday afternoon rolled around and members headed outside to put their classroom skills to work. For the next 4 hours of they day, members spent their time working off their lunch by building basic haul systems using the direction change, 2:1, 3:1, and 4:1 theories. In simple terms, a haul system is a system of ropes and pullies to get a person or persons from point A to point B, such as moving a patient over a cliff or a patient over a road enbankment.
On Sunday, June 4th our members were back at it again practicing more knots and haul systems. In addition, personnel were also taught how to make tripods out of ladders and fire apparatus. Practical use of these skills would be a high anchor point for something like a confined space rescue like someone inside a manhole.
We would like to thank the Huntingdon County Fire Chief's Association for establishing and hosting this training weekend. There were approximately 100 people in attendance. Also, a special thank you to the American Red Cross for supplying breakfast and lunch both days to the personnel in attendance. The American Red Cross also used this weekend for their disaster training.
We encourage our Fire & EMS personnel to attend as much training as possible. Attending courses in other areas, such as this, allows our personnel to experience other facilities and different types of training so that we may be prepared at all times to serve our local community. |
