Local Firemen Attend National TrainingTwenty-five people were pulled from a collapsed library building last week by a multi-agency special rescue team from north-central Indiana. The victims were actors, though, and the rescuers were engaged in the most intense, realistic and long-awaited training exercise most will ever see. The Mutual Aid Box Alarm System Division 201 Tactical Rescue Team, comprised of members from six public safety agencies in the area, including seven from the Warsaw Fire Department, joined other local, state and federal emergency responders from eight states to train in the national-level mock national disaster rescue training last week at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Complex in Butlerville. The local team, built of personnel from Warsaw, Penn Township, Mishawaka, Clay and Niles, Mich., sent 37 members to the massive training center in a 21-vehicle convoy. Notre Dame also has members in the team, but sent none to the training. The experience was the culmination of several years of training and preparation, and justification of the time and expense. “It was very realistic,” explained Warsaw Fire Captain Rob Barker, who said the team had trained for five years to develop the specific national-level skills to participate in the training exercise. Clay, the squad which originated the team 10 years ago, has been training that long. The exercise was held in a newly built engineered rubble pile of mock-former library, inside which fake victims were scattered and screaming for help. Beneath the built wreckage, the crew had to work through to find victims, and pull them out, each one demanding the team utilize a very specific skillset to accomplish the rescue. The library pile was only a small part of the massive MUTC, built on the grounds of an old mental hospital. The group was the first training team to work on the dilapidated building, Barker said. “One minute you’d be running into a piece of concrete and the next you’d get that piece of concrete chiseled or jackhammered out of the way, and you’d crawl ahead and get a victim and get that victim out and behind that victim was a metal desk, so you were using a cutting torch in this tunnel, cutting a desk out of the way,” said Barker. “We rolled in and we had to figure it out ourselves. There were live victims on the rubble pile screaming, ‘Come and get me, come and get me.’ It was very realistic.” Barker said the team had to breach through tunnels stocked with debris, lift victims out of elevator shafts, and jackhammer horizontally inside a confined space, all while making sure to place shores every four feet to ensure the structure does not collapse on top of them. One of the victims, Barker said, was impaled through the torso with a beam, and another woman was blind with a seeing-eye dog who both needed rescued. It’s a mettle-testing, claustrophobic nightmare built for the best of the best of rescuers. And the group from north-central Indiana passed with praise. Barker said the group of evaluators said MABAS Division 201 did an “awesome job”, offering only suggestions to tweak their skills rather than overhaul. The team left the training exercise sticking our their collective chests, secure that if such a real-life emergency happened, they’re ready. “Hands down,” said Barker. “We had to put all the stuff we did in two years together to go, and we’re ready. I think all 100 people would be ready to go tomorrow, just because of this experience. They know what it’s going to take to make it happen.” Local teams like MABAS Division 201 exist to fill the gap between the disaster and when federal rescue teams can arrive. Barker said that typically takes three days, so the state has said the skills and resources need to be in place for local teams to bridge that time. The team has already been to work locally, Barker said, rescuing a man from a grain bin in Silver Lake, and another man who had been trapped in a trench by Sidney a little more than a year ago. The team was also deployed to Nappanee and Portage when tornados touched down years ago, though no rescues were necessary. “Those experiences have justified us being a team, and this training has justified that, if something happens, we’re ready,” Barker said. “It was a great experience.” organ@timesuniononline.com
