East Brandywine volunteers have been working this month on a four part training exercise focused on vehicle rescues. For Week 1 the crews worked on vehicle stabilization using cribbing and air bags (see our post from 6/5/2022), this week however would be more focused on working with the hydraulic tools we utilize to remove doors and other parts of the vehicle to allow us to gain better access to a patient.

Crews first met in the training area to recap the previous training and to also go over some strategies we would utilize for a vehicle rescue. Afterwards crews broke up into three groups. Groups 1 & 2 were more senior firefighters who worked separately on each side of the vehicle but still also had to communicate with each other as they worked to remove the doors and the roof as one team. Once that was accomplished the crews also went over how to utilize the hydraulic rams to do what is called a dash roll to push the dashboard up and back to free a patients legs if needed.

While the more senior firefighters were training on one vehicle, three of our newer members got to work on a vehicle of their own with one of the Lieutenants who was able to show them some of the hydraulic tools and let them work with them to see how the operated.

This was an amazing training for all the members involved and next week we will continue with part 3 of the vehicle rescue training exercises.