By Rosalind Essig ressig@jessaminejournal.com
Jessamine County Maj. Steve Proffitt, far right, watched as the medevac crew demonstrated a hoist.
ressig@jessaminejournal.com
Last week, on a day so hot you could break sweat standing in the shade, a half-dozen guys dressed head-to-toe in navy blue stood in the middle of a field in Jessamine County. Shielding their eyes from the sun — and from the brush being whipped up around them — they watched a helicopter hover perfectly in place while a crew member was repeatedly lowered and brought back up to the aircraft.
The medevac crew demonstrating their skills, as well as a second helicopter and crew, had flown in from Frankfort earlier that day as part of a training program being developed by one in their ranks, who also happens to be a former Nicholasville firefighter.
About 30 men and women from the air and ground crew of Detachment 1, Charlie Co., 2nd Battallion, 238th Medevac of the Kentucky National Guard spent the last week in Jessamine County doing flood and swift-water rescue training with firefighters involved in the Bluegrass Emergency Response Team (BERT). The eight firefighters involved in the training were from the Jessamine County Fire District, Nicholasville Fire Department and Lexington Fire Department.
This week, the whole group went to the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center at Camp Atterberry in the Columbus, Indiana, area.
At the end of the two-week training, Staff Sgt. Jeremy Lowe will have his hands full fine tuning the program so he can present it to his superiors and state emergency management officials. A 10-year veteran of the Nicholasville Fire Department, Lowe saw a disconnect between resources at the National Guard’s disposal — such as the UH-60L Black Hawk helicopters hovering over the county last week — and the emergencies handled by departments like Jessamine County.
When a disaster like a flood hits in Kentucky, a fire department might not know how the Guard can help or, if the Guard is called out, the crew might not have had the training to handle that scenario.
“When I joined this unit, I started realizing that we had this platform and an asset with the state that really wasn’t being utilized,” Lowe said. “... I started deploying with this unit and really working with them, but the flood rescue part of it was something our state desperately needed. We went out to this mission a few times — to go out to Paducah and things like that — and we had never trained on it.”
Lowe’s project is to develop a training program that could be used across the state to open lines of communication between local first responders and the Guard, as well as to share technical skills for flood and other types of rescues.
As Lowe and the crews stood sweating by the camp they had made in a field on Fire Chief Mike Rupard’s farm, it had been “almost a year to the day” since the planning began. Lowe said it also took a year before that to pitch his idea and get approval, making the two weeks of training the culmination of two years of work.
He said bringing his idea to Jessamine County fire was an easy decision because of his experience training with them during his time with the Nicholasville department, but also because the department serves as the technical rescue hub for BERT.
Lowe said BERT was created when U.S. Department of Homeland Security funds were made available to the states in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and Hurricane Katrina. Central Kentucky counties came together to form BERT and each county specialized in preparing for certain types of emergencies. He said, for example, Versailles specializes in hazmat and Lexington in medical.
Jessamine County specializes in technical rescue, such as swift water and rope rescues, and acts as a training hub for those skills.
During the first week of the training, the firefighter trainers demonstrated rescue skills, such as rope skills and how to, from a roof, rescue someone trapped in an attic. When the helicopters were brought in, the firefighters watched and listened in headsets to the crews demonstrate hoists, including landing accurately on a roof or a car.
Lt. John Kerr said they were doing as much hands-on activity as possible, but at this point the goal wasn’t to train firefighters to do what the Guard does or vice versa. He said it’s the beginning stages of developing a way to improve what’s already there by sharing resources and communication.
The Guard works a lot with local law enforcement, but Kerr said this kind of integration in search and rescue isn’t common and the crews need to be able to talk to one another.
“The biggest one is communication. We want to be able to be, in our operations center, so that the fire department can help liaison — because the military speaks differently from the fire department. Ultimately we are there for the same goal,” he said. “… It’s really about building relationships.”
Public Affairs Officer Maj. Steve Martin said the kind of relationship Lowe’s program aims to develop is new for the Guard.
“Really partnering at this level with the fire department is new ground for us,” he said.
In Indiana this week, the group will be able apply some of the information they learned in Jessamine County and practice handling different scenarios. That includes real flood simulations, because the training center has a low-lying area with structures that can be flooded, Martin said.
Long-term, Lowe’s goal is to make the Guard available as an asset. But that’s not to say an aircraft would be called upon in any rescue situation, said Jessamine County Fire Maj. Steve Proffitt. Flash floods, for example, are over too quickly. On the other hand, if the Kentucky River flooded and trapped residents in southern Jessamine County, Proffitt said “they’re literally a phone call away.”
“I think the biggest benefit from this training … is just the releationship that’s built,” he said.
Lowe said the two weeks of training ending this week would serve as proof of concept and they will refine the procedures they developed before presenting it to state emergency management officials. He hopes to be able to take the Jessamine County trainers to work with departments in other counties or regional groups.
“Being a former firefighter/rescuer — and now being a full time National Guard as a rescuer and a medevac — it’s a no-brainer to me,” Lowe said.
See more right here.
Flight for your life: Fire personnel drill for air-water rescue with National Guard
