Ocean City’s soon-to-be-demolished homes provide chance for firefighter training

Written by Ann Richardson Saturday, March 16, 2013 11:31 am

Ocean City’s soon-to-be-demolished homes provide chance for firefighter training

OCEAN CITY — In a home set for demolition, Ocean City firefighters had an unparalleled opportunity on Friday, March 15 to practice saving each others lives.

The daylong Rapid Intervention Training event hosted by Safety and Survival Training, LLC was designed to provide cutting edge training for local firefighters in the event one of their own goes down, said Ocean City Fire Chief Chris Breunig.

“Over the years, it’s become clear that we need to learn how to rescue ourselves,” Breunig said.

The homes being used, he said, will be torn down soon.

“We were able to acquire some houses to use, houses that will soon be demolished, for the training. This house will be torn down next week, so we could take out windows and cut holes in the floor to simulate the conditions of a fire.

“We’re learning six different skills and six different practices,” he said. “These are real life scenarios. This training is very important.”

With more than a half dozen fire trucks lining the street, firefighting tools scattered across the lawn and more than a dozen firefighters in action, it certainly appeared that there was a working fire in progress in the 2400 block of Haven Avenue.

While there was smoke billowing from 2425 Haven, the fire, like the smoke, was not real. On the first floor of the two-story duplex, a firefighter was on his belly, making his way through thick smoke in an attempt to rescue a fallen comrade.

“Brother, brother, are you awake?” Capt. John Murphy asked the unresponsive firefighter. He then shouted he found a “firefighter down.”

Upstairs, one firefighter helped evacuate another through a window into the waiting arms of a third firefighter, who carefully lowered him down a ladder. Rescuing the injured and seemingly lifeless firefighter provided quite a challenge, and trainers were careful to offer helpful tips and suggestions.

In another instance, a firefighter had fallen through the floor and his fellow firefighters were attempting to revive him.

“Times a wastin,’” one said to the other, clearly concerned that they might lose him. 

While training was specific for each of the scenarios, communication was cited as critical in each event.

Breunig said he was pleased that his men were taking the training seriously.

“This will save me a trip to someone’s house if they would get injured, or killed,” he said.  

Firefighters completed survival and rescue training, as well as proficiency based training on the fundamentals of fire ground operations.

Breunig said Safety and Survival Training, LLC was born out of grief. The founders, former firefighters, created the company and dedicated to men lost on July 4, 2002 in Gloucester City. John West, Jim Sylvester and Tom Steward, he said, made the “supreme sacrifice” while attempting to rescue three young sisters from a house fire.

“We’re trying to make sure that never happens in Ocean City,” Breunig said.

Murphy said RIT is the “most in-depth” training ever offered to Ocean City firefighters.

“I’ve been here a long time, and this training is invaluable,” he said. “We’re working on three different drills this morning and these are things that we don’t do every day. To have a company like this come in and train us is great.

“First-hand knowledge is the best experience there is,” he said, adding that Ocean City has been fortunate to have not experienced a loss such as the Gloucester City firefighters had that Independence Day.

“It takes 12 firefighters to rescue one downed firefighter,” he said.

Ocean City has, at any given time, 12 firefighters on duty. Two must man a waiting ambulance and the other firefighters must fight the fire while a rescue is occurring.

“So we rely on the recall firefighters, who are called in, and mutual aid from neighboring fire companies,” he said. “So for the first half hour, you’re working with the guys you have, but it’s really not enough to rescue a guy.”

Murphy said his crews were extremely happy with the day of training.

“It was perfect,” he said. “In the 18 years I’ve been here, we’ve trained a lot, but nothing to this extent. To have a company focused on training, survival and rescue techniques is priceless.”

Murphy said the “fake smoke” and other techniques utilized in the training were the next best thing to working a real fire, and a lot safer, providing opportunities for trainers to instruct without the fear of a life-threatening situation.

“They put wax paper in our face masks, you can’t see anything, it seems like you are in the middle of a lot of smoke,” he said. “That pretty much sums up what you can see in a real fire, nothing. All you have is your sense of feel and touch.” 

Ocean City’s soon-to-be-demolished homes provide chance for firefighter training

Ocean City’s soon-to-be-demolished homes provide chance for firefighter training

Ocean City’s soon-to-be-demolished homes provide chance for firefighter training

Ocean City’s soon-to-be-demolished homes provide chance for firefighter training

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