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Fire Department training climbs to new heights

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Zachary Cacicia
  • 436th Airlift Wing Public Affairs

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. -- Team Dover firefighters now have a new tool for their tool boxes.

A Mobile Travel Team from the Louis F. Garland Department of Defense Fire Academy, Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas, traveled to Dover AFB to teach a Rescue Technician Course for 12 fire emergency services Airmen August 2016, at Dover AFB.

The class was comprised of two Airmen from the 87th Civil Engineer Squadron assigned to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, and ten members of the 436th CES.

“This was truly a unique opportunity for our team members,” said John Melvin, 436th CES Fire Department assistant chief of health/safety. “We would also like to thank the instructors from the DoD Fire Academy, Staff Sgt. Matthew Keenan and Staff Sgt. Alex Rodriguez. Through their guidance, we were able to increase the number of trained and certified rescue personnel by 35 percent.”

This 18-day course includes classroom sessions and practical application. This training teaches students proper techniques for low and high angle rescues.

“We would use these techniques if we had a victim that was stuck somewhere high, maybe they were injured and couldn’t use the stairs, or if they were stuck at the bottom of a canyon,” said Staff Sgt. Matthew Keenan, DoD Fire Academy rescue technician instructor.

Some examples on Dover AFB of where this training could be used in the real world include incapacitated workers on the base water tower, fuel cell confined space, communications vaults, base radio tower and light towers on the flight line.

According to Melvin, only about 350 students receive this training annually. Most of them, 290, at the DoD Fire Academy at Goodfellow, AFB, Texas. The remaining 60 are taught by the Mobile Travel Team.

“Fire Emergency Services would like to extend our thanks to the 436th Maintenance Group for allowing us to conduct most of the required course evolutions on the mobile T-Tail maintenance stand,” said Melvin. “This unique piece of equipment is only located at two locations worldwide: Dover AFB and Westover ARB, [Massachusetts]. At no other location in the active duty Air Force will firefighters be able to train from a more stable platform.”

Both the students and the instructors took full advantage of the T-tail stand.

“A typical fire station would allow us to have 10 to 12 on a rooftop, plus the two instructors; that’s 14; it gets cramped, it doesn’t give you a lot of room,” Keenan said. “This stand provides us a multitude of anchor points, a multitude of levels. What we can do really all depends on what we can dream up. We’ve never used a structure like this before. It’s a first.”

This T-tail stand is normally used by the 436th Maintenance Squadron to conduct Major Isochronal Inspections on C-5M Super Galaxy aircraft. The Fire Department coordinated with 436th MSG for the stand’s use while it was not needed for inspection.

“The students have performed well,” Keenan said. ”This is as typical as they go, and this will open up their ability to add more tools to their tool box.”

For the rope rescue portion of the course, the students learned proper repelling, ascending and basket raises. For the basket raises, Senior Airman Shawn Davis, 436th CES firefighter, volunteered to act as a simulated injured victim.

“It was pretty scary, it wasn’t what I imagined it would be,” said Davis. “But it was pretty cool; very different. It’s good to see what a victim would experience and go through, that way when I’m on the line, I have a good perspective of what the victim is experiencing.”
The two students from JB MDL also said they benefited from the training.

“The rescue tech course brought me here,” said Senior Airman Adam Green, 87th CES firefighter. “I work out of their rescue station. One of our trucks has equipment [for] high angle rescue, and I needed this course to learn how to properly use it. This is an amazing class.”