STAY CONNECTED
FIREGROUND360
  • Home
    • Open Note
    • Acronyms
  • PUSH360
  • Dispatch
    • Radio Chatter
    • Firehouse Table
    • WEB360
    • BLOG360
    • Buy Sell Trade Donate
  • 911
    • How To Use 911
    • Prevent Home Fires
    • Fire Safety
    • Are You Prepared
    • Get Involved
  • About
    • TEAM360
    • ❤ Support
  • Contact

Phillipston Fire Hosts Mass Fire Academy Trench Rescue Course

6/14/2016

0 Comments

 
Phillipston Fire Hosts Mass Fire Academy Trench Rescue Course
By John Seamon JR, Captain Phillipston Fire

This past weekend the Phillipston Fire Department hosted the Massachusetts Fire Academy’s Trench Rescue Technician Level Course. The class went Thursday night 4-11PM, Friday 9-5, Saturday 9-430, and Sunday 9-4. The class was taught by MFA instructors who guided the students on the proper way of shoring up trench walls and three ways to extract a patient who was injured while working in a trench. 
​
Thursday night’s class started with a slide show presentation, and then the students went into the apparatus bay area to go over the equipment which included low and high pressure air bags, air struts, wood struts, hardback panels, cribbing, saws, and how different dimensional lumber would be used.

On Friday morning a trench was dug 16’ long x 4’ wide x 7’ deep. This straight trench was secured by using 4x4’s, 4x6’s, and 6x6’ lumber, Initially Instructors wanted the students to work with lumber to properly secure the trench walls.  Using wood, and cutting the required pieces took almost three hours. After lunch, round two started and this time the students were introduced to air struts and these air struts to support the trench walls. Air struts require the use of high pressure regulators and air hoses attached to a 45 minute 4500 PSI SCBA bottle. 

Saturday morning began with a new 18’ x 5’ wide x 7’ deep trench. When digging the trench the MFA had the backhoe operator undermine one of the trench walls about 4’ long and 2’ in so the students could use whalers. Whalers are 6”x6”x12’ pieces of lumber, when lowered into the trench these are applied against the outside areas where the trench wall is not solid. Strong backs then have a solid mass to push against when air pressure is applied to the struts. Once the trench is secured the MFA instructor’s had the students work on one method of patient extraction using a ladder and stokes basket. 

After lunch, students installed inside whalers, inside whalers are used to span the inside of the trench. When a trench collapses or the spoil pile collapses causing the victim to be covered by 2’ or more under the dirt you can add 2”x12’ lumber behind the whalers which provides the rescue to keep digging lower. When an additional 2’ foot of soil is removed the boards can be moved lower and the rescue teams can continue operation. After a 4’ foot of additional depth is reached, another set of air struts would need to be applied. Once the victim was uncovered, the MFA instructors taught the students how to extract a victim using ropes and weaving the stokes basket through the air struts until it was free to raise above the highest strut, then the extraction team walked the victim to the safe area.

On Sunday morning a “T” trench was dug, the “T” trench is difficult and considered a technician level trench. The reason is on a straight wall trench there are only two walls opposing trench walls to support (left and right). On a “T” trench there are three trenches that intersect and six trench walls that need to be shored. This requires the use strong backs, air struts, inside and outside whalers, and low pressure air bags. All three trench walls need to be installed with low pressure on the struts, and then increased pressure to 100 PSI simultaneously so one set of air struts does not collapse the other trench wall. Once the three walls were fully secured the group stopped for lunch. When training commenced again, the MFA instructors had the teams build an “A” frame out of ground ladders with a block and tackle pulley system to lift the patient out of the trench using a harness around the victim. 

​Chief Stevens, Captain Seamon, Lieutenant Stanley, and FF Mason attended the class with twelve other firefighters from across Massachusetts.
Photo Phillipston Fire Department
Photo Phillipston Fire Department
Photo Phillipston Fire Department
Photo Phillipston Fire Department
Photo Phillipston Fire Department
Photo Phillipston Fire Department
Photo Phillipston Fire Department
Photo Phillipston Fire Department
Photo Phillipston Fire Department
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.


    WEB360°

    Featured fire photographers and a collection of interesting photos, videos, and stories from around the web.

    SUBMIT PHOTOS + VIDEO
    Send us your photos and/or video by email or text using the contact info below. 

    IMPORTANT – Please provide the date, time, a brief description, photo/video, and who should be credited. 

    EMAIL 
    TEXT  (413) 247-9278
    TWEET #FG360

    The views and opinions expressed within this forum are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of FIREGROUND360°

    Copyright FIREGROUND360°. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the consent of FIREGROUND360° and it's authors.

    ARCHIVES

    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014


    CATEGORIES

    All
    Around The Web
    Brush Fires
    Fundraisers
    Lines Down
    Medicals
    Motor Vehicle Crashes
    Must Read
    Project Firehouse
    Structure Fires
    Trainings
    Vehicle Fires
    Weather
    Week In Pictures


    RSS Feed


©2019 FIREGROUND360 | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
HOME   PUSH360   DISPATCH   911   ABOUT   CONTACT