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Comment by DALE G. PEKEL on August 13, 2009 at 11:00am

Hello Tiffanie,

It's great that you're looking at attending FF rescue and survival training - I starting teaching it 16 years ago and have worked extensively to special in it ever since. I'm a big believer in this type of training, my Dad lost two of his friends and fellow FFs at a structure fire when he was on the job. My advice to you is to keep and open mind and never get locked into one 1 idea, technique or piece of equipment. We teach with the mind set that there are many different ways to do many different things and very rarely one best way that will work in every situation.

The FF rescue and survival class I developed (H.E.A.T.T. - High Emergency Advanced Tactics Training) is 56-72 hours in duration. We teach a variety of different tactics including using a hose line for below grade extraction, but know that there are document "Near Misses" and at least one LODD where a hose line wasn't available or wasn't long enough to perform this type of extraction - You need to keep your options open. Your chances of survival increase proportionately with the equipment you're carrying and the techniques that you know at the time the emergency occurs. Realize though that it's just a piece of equipment or a technique unless you practice to the point where you can deploy it in the worst of all conditions.

Finally, never caught up in the situation or all the "fancy" and "innovative" techniques out there. A good buddy of mine fell through a hole at a fire a few years ago (He's also one of my FF rescue and survival Instructors) - The guys that pulled him out were trained in a variety of extraction techniques, but he had the presence of mind and the situational awareness to stand on some of the surrounding debris and elevated himself enough that the top side FFs were able to grab hold of his scba and pull him out - No special equipment or techniques here, just common sense. Good luck and enjoy the training!

Comment by Tiffanie Pettis on August 12, 2009 at 5:06pm

yea im looking for more good videos and doing some reasearch on different rescue techniques and such. partly because i will be attending servival and F.A.S.T. soon and want a heads up on some ideas and all that.

Comment by FETC on August 12, 2009 at 1:14pm

We teach lowering a hoseline into the hole, the firefighter has the option of protecting himself. The other option is if he was physically able to hook up your webbing technique, then he could use the hoseline for rapid extrication. The quickest is the stand on the pistol grip and hug the hose, the other would be if the nozzle does not have a pistol grip, for the FF to send the nozzle back up and stand on the hoseline "bight" and hug both hoses, this gives the firefighters upstairs two seperate hauling points.

Granted neither are "attached" to the brother as with your webbing/beaner technique.

Comment by Robert Owens on August 10, 2009 at 11:09am

Glad that guys are trying to find new ways to do things....but this is only effective with a concious firefighter and in an enviroment such as demonstrated. In high heat and low vis this wouldnt be impossible but would not be easy and maybe to time consuming.