MDW engineers test rescue, evacuation skills
By Don Wagner
Soldiers magazine
September 5, 2006
FORT BELVOIR, Va. (Army News Service, Sept. 5, 2006) – Nearly five years ago, Military District of Washington Engineer Company Soldiers rescued and extracted victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the Pentagon.
The MDW Engr. Co. – which belongs to the 12th Aviation Battalion and is based at Fort Belvoir, Va. – is still tasked with rescuing, evacuating and recovering anyone trapped in a federal building within the National Capital Region.
The company’s Soldiers recently polished their skills in the 12th annual Rescue Challenge, a joint, interagency, technical-rescue training competition featuring members of several county fire departments in northern Virginia.
The competition’s eight rescue and extraction scenarios included confined-space rescues, sites with limited access or limited entrance, and vertical rescues that included the use of ropes and pulleys to retrieve people from high elevations.
To rescue people in damaged or collapsed structures, engineers must first find a safe entry point and shore up the entry area to prevent a further collapse. To do this, they must be proficient in using jackhammers, chain saws and torch cutting equipment. They must also know how to take precautions against explosions, such as those from slow burns or cuts in electrical wires.
According to the MDW Engr. Co.’s 1st Lt. Travis Nichols, the competition’s scenarios included the rescue of an “injured” worker at the bottom of a 20-foot trench. The worker was beneath a metal sheet that had fallen on him and crushed his legs. Rescuers secured the trench area and its walls to prevent further collapse, dug the worker out and loaded him on a stretcher, then used ropes to hoist him to safety.
In an obstacle course scenario, an 800-pound concrete slab was moved over various obstacles at an abandoned prison compound. A rescue team had to first enter the compound by climbing a fence and rappelling from a guard tower before rescuers could move the concrete through the remaining obstacles.
A shoring scenario confronted the rescuers with various obstacles made of reinforced concrete and wood – in a maze filled with abandoned furniture and appliances – that had to be breached so rescuers could find the victim. Once inside the building, the rescue teams constructed an internal shore to stabilize the “collapsed” structure.
On another day, a role-player portraying a diabetic window washer “collapsed” on a small platform suspended on the side of a 30-story building in Rosslyn, Va. Rescuers used what’s called a “high-angle rope rescue” to lower the victim’s stretcher and an “escort” some 600 feet from the roof to a waiting ambulance.
“In rescue operations, it is vital to plan several steps ahead to speed the overall operation,” Nichols said.
Meanwhile, at other locations, other members of the MDW Engr. Co. operated two training lanes. In one, a helicopter with a casualty inside was suspended from a bridge. The rescue teams had to locate the helicopter, lower a rescuer down to the casualty and hoist him back up.
In addition, rescue teams were sent to locate victims in an underground training facility consisting of culvert pipes as small as 18 inches in diameter and a multi-level “rat trap.” Smoke was added to this confined-space facility to decrease the rescuers’ visibility.
“Overall, our team did well, considering we had a lot of inexperienced Soldiers participating,” Nichols said. “Rescue Challenge is an excellent training event that enables us to learn from various experts in the technical-rescue field. This event provided us with an outside evaluation and helped us to improve mission readiness.”
“The teams compete to learn and to improve their technical skills,” said Col. Steward E. Remaly, commander of the MDW Air Operations Group, the 12th Avn. Bn.’s headquarters and thus the organization that “owns” the engineer company. “Such training is an integral part of training and readiness in relation to the war on terror.”
“The competition honed our skills by placing Soldiers in challenging situations and allowing them to build relationships with the partners they’ll work with in an actual emergency situation,” said Capt. Frank Tedeschi, commander of the MDW Engr. Co.
“Everything we do is as a part of the joint interagency team,” he said. “Our Soldiers are trained and ready to execute missions with our partners from state and local jurisdictions, as well as federal agencies and the other armed services.”
The MDW Engr. Co.’s members are volunteers from different engineering career fields, and they usually join the unit with no knowledge of rescue operations. Whatever their background and experience, all unit members complete a month-long in-house certification three to four times a year to remain rescue-qualified.
The Soldiers train several times a year with local and federal agencies and other technical rescue teams, including military teams and representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to develop and maintain the most advanced skills. Usually there are two big events: Rescue Challenge in May, and Capital Shield in November.
“The real challenge we face is training our Soldiers and maintaining their proficiency, since they are here for only two to three years,” Tedeschi said. “The first responders we face in this competition average more than 10 years of experience in technical-rescue.”
The MDW Engr. Co. maintains an initial response readiness team of eight to 12 engineers on constant standby, ready to deploy by air within two hours. The rest of the team, with more manpower and equipment, can deploy by ground within three hours. In addition to its specialized rescue equipment the company also has many of the same tools as a standard combat-engineer company, including bulldozers, dump trucks, small and large trucks, small-emplacement excavators, hydraulic excavators and bucket loaders.
“After watching our team during this four-day competition, I am confident that we can respond in any situation,” said unit member Spc. Jeremy King.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
