Machinery Rescue Operations Course – Carol Stream, IL

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SOLD OUT! You may register to be on the waiting list.

Instructors: Andrew Brassard and TBA

Date: September 27-28, 2018

Time: 8am-5pm

Location: Carol Stream Fire District Station 28, 365 N. Kuhn Rd. Carol Stream, Illinois 60188

Investment: $425

Description:

Day 1

Part I:
A. B. C. D. E. F.
Hours Introduction to Machinery Rescue Operations (Lecture & PPT) 2
Identify hazards
Identify States of energy Lock out tag out
Case histories
Different tool kits Medical considerations
Take The Door Training

Machinery Rescue Operations – Course Outline
Part II: Morning Machinery Rescue Skill Set Rotations (Hands-on)
A. Tool Familiarization
-cutting w/ wizzer saw
-drilling and punching rivets
-shearing bolt heads with pneumatic chisel -pneumatic impact gun use
-snap ring pliers use
-cutting with a dremel type tool in a confined space -portable band saw use
-reciprocating saw use
-pros/cons of each type of tool
(heat generation, speed, vibration, atmosphere)
hand nailed to 2×4
-students cut nail using a hacksaw blade demonstrating tight spaces and heat generation

B. Oxy-Acetylene Torch
-oxy-acetylene torch components -oxy-acetylene torch ignition steps -oxy-acetylene torch pros/cons
(heat generation, speed,vibration, atmosphere) -students cut re-bar
-students cut flat bar -students cut pipe

C. Size-up and Identification & Lock Out Tag Out (LOTO)
-using small mirror and light to identify hazards
-using illuminated search cam to identify hazards
-students shall unlock 2 locks via combination identified within
the hazard box using illuminated search cam and mirrors and flashlight (heat generation, speed,vibration, atmosphere)
-students shall refresh on LOTO
-students shall identify different energy devices
-students shall identify LOTO safety devices -circuit breakers
-valve hand wheel -wall toggle switch -power cord
-wall plus
-circuit breakers
-etc.
-students shall implement LOTO devices using props

LUNCH

Part III: Afternoon Machinery Rescue Skill Set Rotations (Hands-on)
A. Meat Grinder Entrapment 1 -students identify “hand” entrapment
-students identify medical considerations
-students identify visually what preliminary tools are required
-students disassemble with cutting, grinding, and hand tools -hand removal from grinder
Drive Shaft Entrapment
-students identify “hand” entrapment
-students identify medical considerations
-students identify visually what preliminary tools are required -students disassemble with cutting, grinding, and hand tools -hand removal from drive shaft

B. Fence Impalement & Auger Entrapment 1
-Fence Impalement
-students identify fence impalement
-students identify medical considerations (airway, c-spine, etc) -students review and determine best methods for stabilizing
fence section and patient prior to removal -student identify available tools and pros/cons (heat generation, speed,vibration, atmosphere) -students prepare cooling methods
-students use oxy-acetylene torch
-students use portable band saw
-students use reciprocating saw
-section of fence and patient are removed -students review what works best

C. Hand and Finger Entrapment 1
-Hand Entrapment
-student identify hand entrapment
-students identify methods of shielding patient’s hand -student identify available tools and pros/cons
(heat generation, speed,vibration, atmosphere) -students prepare cooling methods
-students cut pipe with dremel type tool
-students cut pipe with angle grinder
-students cut glass with dremel type tool
-student removes hand from entrapment
-Finger Entrapment
-students identify finger entrapment
-students identify methods of shielding patient’s finger -student identify available tools and pros/cons
(heat generation, speed, vibration, atmosphere) -students remove glass bottle from finger
-students remove ring from finger

Day 2

Part I: Metal Size-Up & Load Assessment (Lecture)
A. Rollers (Load assessment)
-teaches students to operate in tight spaces
-restrictive spaces
-disassembly
-arm stuck in rollers -patient care

B. Machinery Rescue on Rope (Positioning)
-students will use rope rescue equipment for work positioning and rescue -disassembly and metal cutting
-arm trapped in rollers
-patient care

LUNCH

C. Meat Grinder Prop (Metal Size-up)

D. THE BOX Spreading and Lifting inside a space (Tactical Worksheet)
-machine press simulation
-lock out tag out
-students must crawl into prop to perform rescue
-lifting and spreading operations- load assessments -metal cutting
-stabilization

Register Here >>>

Courage Under Fire – Fire Officer Lessons Learned After Getting The Badge! – Carol Stream, IL

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Instructor: Deputy Chief Steve Prziborowski, Santa Clara County Fire Department

Date: March 1, 2018

Location: Carol Stream Fire District Station 28

Investment: $125

Do you have what it takes to be a great company officer in the year 2018 and more importantly beyond? It’s one thing to be an adequate company officer. It’s another thing to be a great company officer. The fire service has enough company officers who are just slot fillers and just call it in every day or do the bare minimum to get by each shift, and/or are retired in place (RIP). When I say great company officer, I envision someone who is willing to not settle for incompetence, mediocrity, or inappropriate behavior, and is willing to not be his or her crew’s best friend every minute of the day. A great company officer is a leader, a boss, a supervisor, and as some say, a designated adult when needed. Not a day goes by where something inappropriate or unethical makes social media and/or the Internet, and reflects negatively on the fire service, especially since it happened on duty and many times, at the fire station! Drinking on the job; prostitutes in the fire station; dealing drugs out of the station. The list goes on. What’s the common denominator? The lack of leadership at the fire station level!

As a fire officer in today’s fire service, you must possess courage under fire and continuously aspire to be the best officer you can be. The saying, “If I only knew then what I knew now” is the focus of this session. Current topics affecting the nationwide fire service, as well as personal lessons learned (some the hard way), will be shared and discussed. Attendees, regardless of rank or the type of department they serve at, will leave with numerous tips for leadership success.

Topics to be shared and discussed include but are not limited to:

· Successfully transitioning from Firefighter to Company Officer: Here’s the badge, don’t screw it up!

· Leadership doesn’t start at the top – it starts with the Company Officer!

· The top ten contributing factors to Line Of Duty Deaths

· 10 commandments of a great company officer

· 10 more commandments of a great company officer

· Establishing personnel expectations and holding personnel accountable

Organizations around the Country, not just fire departments, are struggling for quality leadership at all ranks. Unfortunately, many fire companies and even departments are being led by a fire officer who chooses to be more of a buddy than a boss when needed, or is not prepared to serve in the position they are filling. In addition to sharing my suggestions for success, I will try to encourage those in attendance to share their suggestions as well, so that attendees can learn from as many others as possible, and so they can be better prepared for the future.

Register Here >>>

CANCELLATION POLICY:
There will be a $25 cancellation fee on all cancellations made more that 10 days prior to the conference unless you would like to receive a full credit for future conferences or seminars. We do not offer refunds for cancellations made within 10 days of the start of the conference or seminar. However, we will offer full credit to a future conference or seminar.

2018 Lone Star Fire Conference – Austin, Texas

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LONESTAR-FIRE-CONFERENCElogo

Date: September 12-14, 2018

Time: 9am-5pm

Location: Renaissance Austin Hotel – 9721 Arboretum Boulevard
Austin, Texas 78759

Investment: $275 Full Conference and $125 for a single day if registered by December 31, 2017, On January 1 the price will go up to $375 for Full Conference and $150 for a single day.

2018 Speakers

Lieutenant Ray McCormack – FDNY
Chief Mark Wesseldine – Platte Canyon (CO) FD, FDNY (RET.)
Captain Matt Rush – Austin FD
Battalion Chief Curt Isakson – Escambia County (FL) Fire Rescue
Lieutenant Eric Tollund – Denver (CO) FD
Battalion Chief Shannon Stone – Fort Walton Beach (FL) FD
Deputy Chief (RET.) Mike Terpak – Jersey City (NJ) FD
Assistant Chief (RET.) Paul Conway – Milwaukee (WI) FD
Lieutenant Tim Klett – FDNY
Assistant Chief Dave McGrail – Denver FD

Click here to book a room at Renaissance Austin Hotel the conference hotel for $201/night

Register Here >>>

CANCELLATION POLICY:
There will be a $25 cancellation fee on all cancellations made more that 10 days prior to the conference unless you would like to receive a full credit for future conferences or seminars. We do not offer refunds for cancellations made within 10 days of the start of the conference or seminar. However, we will offer full credit to a future conference or seminar.

Remembering Lt. Andy Fredericks By Brett Graves

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It’s hard to believe that it’s been 15 years since 343 members of the FDNY lost their lives trying to save the lives of scores of people at the World Trade Center. Among them was Andy Fredericks assigned to Squad 18.

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I never had the honor of personally meeting Andy, but just prior to 9/11 had just discovered his writings and became hooked on his message. I read every article he wrote and watched his videos from Fire Engineering’s Bread and Butter Series dozens of times. Andy is the inspiration behind the FTR Engine Company Operations class we conduct annually in Carol Stream, IL. Every instructor we have for this class had a connection to Andy.

If you have not heard of Andy Fredericks I suggest you learn who he was and read his articles! You will be a better firefighter for it!  Start by clicking here >>> A TRIBUTE TO THE WORK OF ANDY FREDERICKS (Compiled by Gary Lane) found on the Nozzle Forward website. Become one of Andy’s Ambassadors and keep his message alive!

Andy, thank you for your contributions to the fire service! Your message has touched and connected so many of us. You are a true example to leaving the job a little better for the next guy! RIP Brother.

Search By The Numbers By Eddie Crombie

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“To save lives and property”

These words are the essence of why we chose the vocation of firefighter. Every action we take on a fire ground in centered around accomplishing this one goal. Attack, ventilation, forcible entry, search, salvage and overhaul are all functions we are all familiar with, but only one has the single goal of saving lives.

Search is one of the most important roles on the fire ground. Sadly, it is a skilled assignment that gets overlooked in training and even on the fire ground. With low staffing levels that plague so many departments, many perform their search functions off the attack line or even wait for later arriving companies to fill this gap. Instead of only listing techniques and giving you little tips, let’s put some numbers behind our knowledge to make us more efficient and more effective.

Thanks to the brothers at FirefighterRescueSurvey.com we are starting to see some trends form that we can use to our benefit. The goal of the website is simple; a data driven approach to searching. They have created a simple survey to complete after a rescue is made that is included in a larger database. Although the project is still in its infancy and the sample size is not huge, it can still be used to gain many valuable insights we otherwise would not have.

The primary search is fast under hostile fire conditions, looking for viable victims in obvious places. According to the data, 48.7% of all victims are found in the bedroom or in the hallway. Specifically, between the hours of 1000-2200 we find the majority of our victims in the bedroom or in that general area. From 1700-2100 most victims are in the family room. Knowing this we can concentrate our initial efforts in the area where we have the greatest chance of finding a victim. The habit if entering the front door, hugging the wall, and scouring every square inch is not only inefficient, but it is a disservice to our citizens.   After sizing up the building and making an educated decision on the location of the high chance areas, we need to rapidly make our way there. Once we reach our objective then we can thoroughly make our way back to the point of entry.

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Another way we can use this data is to look at where within the room we find the victims. Of the reported surveys, 53.4% of victims were found on the floor, 11.4% were found on a bed, 11.9% found behind or near a door and 6.7% were found on a couch. These numbers enforce a few things.

First, we need to focus on sweeping the floor with our hands, not our tools. We lose all tactile feel when we probe with our tool. Many times you can reach the center of the room by extending your reach off the wall with your tool.

Second, it is imperative we properly search the bed. To do this we first sweep under the bed, using the tool only if we cannot completely reach under the bed. Next, we check the top of the bed by lying flat and sweeping across the entire surface. Then we reach and check the space between the bed and the wall. Finally before we get off the bed, we should making a breaststroke-like motion over our heads checking for the presence of a bunkbed. Once all this is done, we can continue searching the reminder of the room. This same procedure should be used when we find a couch; under, on, behind.

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Most importantly, we must search behind the door. Many times, a victim will open the door and immediately become overcome by the products of combustion. Sometimes when making entry through a doorway we push the victim behind the door, especially if they are a child. Upon entering a room, we should get down below the smoke and scan the room with a light. This helps us get a layout of the room and spot any possible victims lying on the floor. Not surprisingly, 96.3% of the victims found were in moderate to zero visibility. We must rely on other senses so, in a loud, clear voice ask “Is anyone in here?”. Hold your breath while listening any victim response, then immediately reach behind the door, and aggressively proceed with your primary search of the room. Too often we find those victims behind the door on the secondary search.

The most staggering statistic is how many rescues are made when there are no reports of trapped victims, or even worse, reports that everyone is out. Regardless of pre arrival information, we must search when conditions warrant. 32.7% of grabs were made when this information was present. I am not advocating for being arbitrarily aggressive and charging in to search regardless of conditions, but be intellectually aggressive and make decisions based on a solid foundation of core knowledge. If conditions warrant our entry to make an aggressive attack, we should also perform a primary search.

We must also acknowledge the use of Thermal Imaging Cameras when performing search. This is an invaluable tool that gives us the ability to overcome the hindrance that smoke can create. The TIC should only be used for reference. A quick scan of the room prior to entering can give us useful information. Even in low visibility conditions, we can make out general room features including the location of furniture, windows and doors, we can see the heat signatures of possible victims and also might see fire travel within walls.

More important is what we cannot see. A weakened floor due to fire conditions below may be invisible. Mirrors and glass will show us the reflection of the victim and not give us their actual location. Also, the sense of depth and distance is lost when looking through the screen of a TIC. Is it easy to get fixated on the screen, losing your location within the structure.

For these reasons, we still must always use to our basic skill-set and maintain our physical orientation. Only use the camera as a reference.

The basic core skill set of searching has been proven over decades of aggressive interior firefighting. The statistics developed from FirefighterRescueSurvey.com are not meant to change these tried and true methods. They enforce what we already know to help us become more efficient and effective on the fire ground. Be aggressive with your searches and make educated decisions based on proven tactics that are backed with real world data.

EDDIE CROMBIE is a firefighter/paramedic with the Joliet (IL) Fire Department, with which he has served since 2007. He began his fire service career as a volunteer for the Minooka (IL) Fire Protection District in 2001.  Crombie is an Illinois-certified fire instructor III and has trained firefighters in volunteer, combination, and career departments.  He is also a member of the Will County (IL) chapter of the F.O.O.L.S.