After a week of freezing temperatures and multiple structure fires, the Sedalia Fire Department took this week to train on ice and cold-water rescues.
“Everybody recognizes that we show up to structure fires and vehicle accidents and medical calls, but we also get into what we would consider technical rescues as well,” explained Capt. Daniel Shaw. “Ice rescues or cold-water rescues are a part of that. We're kind of Jacks-of-all-trades and somebody's got to show up and get people out, so this is a very important aspect of our job.”
The firefighters are spending three days this week training on the still-frozen surface of the fishing pond at Liberty Park.
“The recent cold snap was hard on us and several other people in the community with the rash of structure fires,” added Chief Greg Harrell, “but if we want to look at a silver lining, it gave us the opportunity for this pond to freeze over so that we could do this training and stay up on this part of our job.”
As the temperatures warmed, the ice became dangerously thin, making breaking through the surface more of a certainty than a possibility.
“It's very unpredictable,” said Shaw. “The sides are going to typically be more fragile than the center, so getting on and off the ice is going to be even more critical. Ice always seems to appear to be thicker than it really is. The interesting part is you can get out into the middle on really thick ice and at any one point, you could take a different step and fall right through.”
Firefighters used a diminutive dummy to play the part of a small child that had fallen through the ice. Calling out to “Billy,” as they had dubbed the rescue dummy, the firefighters found him as unresponsive as any child trapped in the freezing would quickly become.
Using a ladder to bridge the melting shoreline, firefighter Denis Levko ventured onto the frozen surface only to repeatedly break through the surface and fall into the frigid water. “You feel the ice crack underneath your feet,” said Levko. “You think it’s thick enough but when it starts cracking it's a pretty eerie feeling because you know you're going in.”
Levko had to crack the ice and swim or claw his way back onto the surface and fight his way to the victim, spreading his weight as evenly across the ice as possible to avoid breaking through.
“You’re up to your chest in the water and ice keeps crumbling in front of you. We train on it so it's not that scary but being out on the lake somewhere with nobody around or just your kids and you falling through. It would definitely be a scary feeling,” Levko said. “Imagine being just in your street clothes and going in, your clothes would quickly get heavy and drag you down.”
Levko wears a specially designed bright yellow dry-suit, which is buoyant and has attachment points tied to a rope that his teammates onshore man as they encourage him toward the ice-bound “child.” After an arduous struggle to reach the victim, the rescuer pats his head and the other firefighters reel the freezing pair back to the shore, pulling “Billy” onto a backboard and then to safety on the shore.
After Levko, other firefighters got chances to train in the dry-suit and rotate positions onshore.
“We do have a technical rescue team but any of our employees from captain on down have the potential of putting on these suits,” Shaw said.
With three shifts of firefighters, three separate training sessions were required on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week.
“We thankfully haven't had to experience many ice rescues like other parts of the country, but you obviously want to have that training under your belt as you never know when one of our kids will run out here and fall through” Shaw added.
“It seems every time we have a heavy rain, we get calls for kids playing in a drainage ditch and we seem to go on those quite a bit. I know that we've responded to this exact location for a water rescue, but I don't believe it was cold water,” Harrell said. “Fortunately, I don't recall in our recent history having to utilize this, but it's definitely something we have to stay up on just in case.”
