Copyright 2005 Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Inc.
All Rights Reserved

By SHAUN SUTNER
Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, Mass.)
 
WORCESTER - Firefighter Robert Judge dangled upside down on the end of a rope.

Some 25 feet above his red-helmeted head, the rope was anchored to a high-tech belaying device perched above a railing on the second floor of the former Worcester Common Outlets mall.

The firefighter and about 15 of his colleagues were practicing high-angle rappelling techniques for real-life rescues yesterday.

Berkeley Investments, the Boston-based real estate firm that owns the old urban mall and is planning to replace it with a $563 million apartment-office-retail complex, is allowing the Fire Department to use the cavernous indoor space for training all winter and possibly beyond.

For the firefighters, members of an elite technical rescue task force, the mall is ideal terrain for testing their advanced techniques and sophisticated tools such as the Arizona Vortex belay equipment that kept Firefighter Judge from crashing to the carpeted floor.

"You can't buy this kind of training," said District Fire Chief Frank D. Deliddo, who supervises the rescue group.

His top trainers, including the task force's co-coordinators, are nationally known experts in the rescue field who travel the country teaching other rescue personnel the latest techniques in the field.

"In the state of Massachusetts, we are at the forefront of teaching rescue," the district chief said.

The equipment on display at the mall yesterday was part of $500,000 worth of gear the Fire Department bought this year with money from a federal homeland security grant. The department was also able to buy, for $300,000, a state-of-the-art fire rescue truck that carries the special tools in custom-made compartments. It is available to help trained rescuers in all Worcester County communities.

Lt. John J. Griffin, one of the co-coordinators of the rescue group, said the task force would be using the mall at least four times a month over the winter. Plans call for the building to gradually be demolished, and the firefighters hope to practice tunneling through walls, rescuing victims trapped in rubble and dealing with collapsed buildings.