confined space and entanglement real good exercise

We made boxes out of plywood and some 2x4 and alot of rope, wire, anything that we could think of that would illustrate what it would be like to be entangled. Then get out of it. We also took the same princilpe and made a smaller box and made it to where you had to go up a level. But the kicker was that you had to take off your air pack and slide up the hole. (while blindfolded)

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Permalink Reply by 2y0a1vey9p4zt on October 15, 2008 at 12:40pm

You have any pictures of the boxes? I'd like to see them, as I am beginning construction of similar devices for my department.

Permalink Reply by Firefighter95_pence on October 15, 2008 at 11:13pm

send me your email and i will get some blueprints of them.

Permalink Reply by 2y0a1vey9p4zt on October 15, 2008 at 11:29pm

brent.sanger@yahoo.com

I appreciate it. Thanks.

Permalink Reply by Kelvin L. Davis on October 31, 2008 at 10:16pm

I would also be interested in a set of prints or even photos to get some ideas. My email is CaptDavisSFD@adelphia.net
Thanks

Permalink Reply by Walter Messer on November 19, 2008 at 4:24pm

WE have build a few. depending want your using them for depends on the size you make it. we use them for search and rescue in the tower, and our SCBA confidence course both are different sizes. one has an open top to help if needed ,the other doesn't

Permalink Reply by Darrin Simpson on November 19, 2008 at 9:23pm

I am also thinking of building somrthing like that. I would greatly apreciate it if you could send me the blueprints to my e-mail is darrin1149@live.com. Thank you very much and be safe.

Permalink Reply by Matthew J Strausbaugh on November 28, 2008 at 1:04pm

This exercise really stresses the importance of staying calm. This is a great, great thing. You definately don't want to come up against this for the first time in the heat of battle. We used a set of these for our FFII program. Something that helped me was to remove the pack and slide in front of me so I could free it quicker. I also want to build a set for our dept.. Only thing is,,, don't let the students use their wire cutters if they have them, that's not the spirit of this exercise!! Maybe only once, so they get the feel of gaining access to and using the tool without vision. For our final evolution, SAR, we used these boxes minus most of the wires to get our downed FF out.. One hell of a job getting a person through on an incline, be sure to have your rescue straps..

Don't get hung up on plans, use your imagination!! Train for the worst, make it as bad as you can imagine.. They're plywood boxes, you can change them!!!

Permalink Reply by Hugo Ferreira on November 30, 2008 at 4:01pm

I would like to see how these boxes are made, could speak with my commander for him to give me auturização to build one for our unit training. if you don 't mind says something to hugoferreira69@hotmail.com
thanks

Permalink Reply by Tom on December 1, 2008 at 10:38am

Would love to have the blueprints of the confined space and the entanglement please send to qfdtraining@windstream.net

Permalink Reply by Joey "BigShow" De Piano on December 13, 2008 at 4:03pm

Sounds pretty awesome, we did a similiar idea but we were able to get a local contractor donate a really large section of drop cieling tile and track we made a cieling section roughly 10 x 10 tied it together with some picture frame wire then threw everything we could think of on top of the tiles,and supported the entire unit between some long tables as the search crews crawl under at certain points we yank the tables out and let the sim cieling drop on them (it only drops about a foot) then as they try to back out the vents and wiring all tangle up..The point of the drill was to see who called for Mayday for fast team and who got tangled up or used all their air thinkig escape was the way to go before hand what was really interesting were the guys who forgot to have a radio with them cause it was a drill (complacent)

Permalink Reply by Jason Brooks on January 2, 2009 at 8:53pm

I built a box that is 8 feet long and 4 foot square. The end wall has the ability to have half sheets of drywall slid into it for a wall breach as well. If you want to get mean, add a torpedo heater to the open end. Make them drag a dummy through the opening they create. You can use it with or without the entanglement issues as well. We move it around in the different search drills. They never know when they will encounter it. I also mounted a 4x8 "ceiling to a wall so that they can practice pulling ceilings. The drywall just gets replaced.

Permalink Reply by Rob Odenwald on January 6, 2009 at 5:16pm

We made a similar entanglement simulator that is easily comes apart for storage or transfer. The plans were in the Feb. 2008 FireRescue Magazine. It's 8 feet long, 8 feet wide and 4 feet tall and has numerous wires and entanglement obstacles a reduced profile station and an option to break thru dry wall. We require our firefighters to go thru it to where we make sure they get entangled and call a Mayday properly and calmly. Excellent practice the guys and gals loved it. It's cheap and easy to build, about 2 hours. I included some pics.

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