NorthStar EMS Smalls Falls Training WIth DK By: Gabe Gunning

This past weekend was a doozy up here in Franklin county. It was absolutely beautiful and it also happened to be that time of year. Yes, the annual spring Smalls Falls Training coordinated by the 2010 Northstar EMS Employee of the Year, Dennis Kerrigan WEMT-P. The Smalls Falls Training has become a treasured time when Franklin SAR, Northstar, and area Fire Agencies, mainly Phillips and Rangeley Fire, can all come together for some quality training time with ropes and water in the vertical realm.

This particular session occurred over a two day timeframe which is something of a new concept. This is how it worked: day one was a basic seminar regarding ropes techniques, essentially an awareness level class delving into some operational techniques. It is a great review and a thorough introduction specifically for the ropes systems that are carried on all first out duty rigs in the Northstar System. Day two, on Sunday was an advanced ropes day, more of a full on operational day, where the rubber really meets the road.

Saturday was a Phillips day: Jim Gould, Phillips Fire Chief, Tim of Phillips Fire and avid ropes guy, and Stan Wilcox Northstar paramedic and Phillips Fire member came on Saturday along with the Northstar Phillips Duty Crew of the Day Nate Delavan and Colby Atwood. It was great to see so many folks from the Phillips perspective especially as Phillips Fire has coverage of the Smalls Falls area. The training was full of directed energy with a small dedicated team of learners and lot’s of rescuer pearls were given out by DK. We finished just as some nasty weather started coming in hot and fast.

Day two was great! It started off with a bang at the end of the introductions and course briefing. Along with the usual suspects of the smalls falls training, mainly DK, Al Sleight, and myself, Jeff from FSAR and the folks from Phillips Fire, the Northstar Phillips Duty Crew of the Day, Darlene Peters and Dan Brown; Northstar Rangeley Duty Crew of the Day, Ben Guild and Peggy Betts; and Stan Wilcox and Jeremy O’Neil, Northstar paramedics all were in attendance. So back to the bang: a tweenage girl (mysteriously similar in appearance to one of DK’s daughters) came up to the group yelling that her father had just fallen off the cliff! The clock started and the team got their gear together and made the traverse over to the main falls to initiate the scene size up.

The simulation was a smashing success! From initial patient access to all rescuers back in the cold zone of the scene with the patient (Luigi the manikin) secured took a little less than an hour. This included setting up an initial dropline for two rescuers (Ben and Jeff) to gain access to the patient along with setting up a vertical raise/lower of a litter / attendant system (Tim on the first round and Jeremy for the second) and backup safety systems. After lunch, we did another rescue cycle and broke down each component of the rescue system together for further knowledge building and understanding of the mechanical reasoning behind the system.

Lessons learned: as DK continues to stress, proper technical rescue scene responses are all about appropriate utilization of the technology and knowledge on hand. Our response capability within the Franklin County system has reached a point where we keep the rescue response as simple as possible. It really all comes down to rescue before medicine. You can do medicine until the cows come home but if you aren’t able to get the patient and rescuers safely out of the scene, then where is the success? This point was driven home on both Saturday’s training session and last fall’s session as well. Both of these sessions took place along the roadway / falls interface where last year Maine DOT did some major Route 4 remodeling and deforestation allowing for some of the riskiest all-hazards response profiles one could ever think up. See a prior post for that write up as to why its so truly scary.

Till next time, which I believe is the Summer Version of our Annual Northstar/FSAR Backcountry Jamboree.(Rapid River in August)

Photos and article by: Gabe Gunning,
Thanks Gabe!