Day 19 & 20 - Hoisting and Blind Crawls

Day 19 -

It was Friday, and one of the coldest days of the academy. We had spent the previous day tying knots, and expected much of the same. We started our day by checking our gear and getting ready for dress-down drills. These occur every Mon, Wed, and Fri. The goal? Put on your gear as fast as you can, in the allotted two minute time. We broke up in two groups. The first group did dress down, while the others assembled their Heads up Displays and Talk Back Microphones.

My facepiece did not have a spot for a talkback mic, but I did assemble my HUD. Later that day, Resource took my facepiece and added a bracket.

I was pretty happy with my dress out time. We did three rounds, and the last two rounds were in the 2 minute window. Lieutenant gave us a few scenarios and away we went. I'm starting to get the hang of it. After getting my pants on, I drop down to my knees and get ready from there. It seems to work fairly well.

The rest of the day we spent talking about ropes and rope rescues. We even hit the gym and practiced hoisting techniques. We lifted fans, sledge hammers, pike poles, axes, and hoses. I had a little trouble with the fan knot. Not so much with the knot, but tying one with a huge tail. No big deal though...

At the end of the day, I and four others were excused from PT. It was the beginning of our EMT training. Hopefully by the end of March, I will be EMT IV trained and ready for the "Real World".

It was a great way to go into the weekend.....

Day 20 -

I had an odd feeling about work this morning. I don't know if it was because I wasn't prepared for my test, or the fact that I was running behind this morning. Regardless of the reason, I got dressed, defrosted the car and headed to the training center.

After SCBA check out, we gathered our turnouts and set up in the gym. We then headed back to the classroom for some quick studying. It helped. 30 or so minutes later and we were going over the test. I got a 90. The lowest score I've had so far, but still okay by me.

We then got ready for the 1st round of drills. This drill was designed to get us used to hoisting tools. Instead of in the gym, we took this out to the fire ground.

We were separated in our small four person groups and head to the gym. There we paid a price for misplacing a black rope. 20 push ups later, group by group we put on our turnouts and headed out to the fire ground. I should note that my air cylinder was pretty low (3,000 psi) and I was the group leader.

I took my crew out to Captain, and he gave us our instructions. Two by two we entered the drill tower through the first floor window. After sounding the floor, we headed up the tower, through the scuttle hole (a ladder to the top floor). We then came down and headed to our second task. Tie and raise a ladder. I grabbed the rope and tied the knot, attached the rope to the ladder and finished. By this time, my low pressure alarm was ringing. We then were sent on our next task, walk the grounds. This involved us walking up some stairs, down a ramp and going over to walls. The first wall (fence) was taller than I. I attempted to jump up and over, but I wasn't going to make it with out some help. Two of my crew mates picked me up and more or less through me over the fence. It's nice to have folks around who could help. As we headed over to the next area, my air ran out. I popped the regulator, and headed to our last station, tie and hoist a fan. After all the trouble I had the day before, I had zero when I really needed to tie it. I took my new since of pride and headed over to kneel with the rest of the class. We then changed our air cylinders and got ready for lunch.....

After lunch, Round 2 of drills. We were divided into two groups...Battalion A & B. and then further divided into groups of four. The tasks were handed out.
Three stations - Confined Spaces, Entanglement and rafter crawl. Again we had to dress out, but because of air cylinder shortage, we did not have to go on air. We did (however) have to put wax paper in our facepiece. That's right...Couldn't see a thing, only light and dark.

After a few passport issues (let's not go there) we all headed out to our task. The trip over to the drill was interesting. We were told to hold on to the air tank of the person in front of us. It's more or less the blind leading the blind. We headed out to the (what I think was) bottom level of the drill tower. After making our way through the room, we headed back out into the light and towards (what I think was) the resource building. There we were sent into a maze of obstacles. The first obstacle was a small sloped wall. That led to a small tunnel. We then proceeded to get down on our stomachs and inch our way through a small rounded tunnel. I'm guessing it was about 17 feet long. I got about half way through and had to stop. Congestion in front caused me to have to wait inside the tunnel. A few pushes later, and out the tunnel I came. We then crawled through another tight gap and waited for our next assignment. That was to return to the gym.

I found that with my vision gone, I really had to rely on information gained by my other senses and the senses of others. I also played a part in their experience. It really was an awesome time and tomorrow has promised to be just as good.

PT went well. I managed to pump out 30 pushups and do almost all the exercises on count. That's a huge step in the right direction (for me at least).

That's all for today...lots to report. I REALLY am enjoying this job!!!