By Todd South
Chattanooga Times Free Press (Tennessee)
DALTON, Ga. — As firefighter Adam Diskey looped the thin, fluorescent green ascenders around the thick rope attached to his harness, a colleague yelled down from above, “We got all day, Diskey.”
Within minutes, Mr. Diskey, a Gordon County firefighter, pushed and pulled the ropes up, climbing about 30 feet up the concrete tower.
He transferred the rope to rappel down and slid to the window where Lt. Brandon Bray of the Dalton, Ga., Fire Department inspected his gear. Then he quickly zipped down to the ground.
It was a practice run before he and a couple of dozen area firefighters test Monday for rope rescue technician certification. They had completed two weeks of training, just a fraction of the 400 hours required to join the newly created Georgia Search and Rescue Task Force 6.
The Georgia Emergency Management Agency task force includes volunteers from 21 North Georgia counties.
"(GSAR) allows us to have personnel trained that will allow us a quicker reaction time and allow us to network with other agencies in the area,” said Capt. Ricky Busby, Dalton firefighter and head of the task force training committee.
Capt. Busby said the committee hopes to have at least 80 fully trained task force members by late spring. The group began training in January.
Georgia’s first task force team was operational for the June 2004 G8 summit. Since then, teams have formed in metro Atlanta and in central and coastal Georgia.
“They are set up based on population and response time,” GEMA spokesman Ken Davis said. “We want everyone to be within a two-hour response time from the units.”
Force multiplier
Mr. Davis said the task forces were organized through Department of Homeland Security grants and modeled after urban search and rescue teams which the Federal Emergency Management Agency began in the early 1990s. The teams respond to disasters such as terrorist attacks, weather-related problems and building collapses.
Capt. Busby said local emergency crews will respond first to incidents and the commander will then decide whether to call the task force.
Each task force has a specialized truck equipped for search and rescue procedures. Georgia’s 14 trucks were purchased for about $1.2 million apiece.
The Region 6 truck is based in Calhoun, the most central location for the 21-county area, Capt. Busby said.
All training time has to be coordinated among participating fire departments, many of which are short-staffed, he said. Task force members travel to sites throughout Region 6, but most training is in Dalton, Cartersville and Carrollton.
The training covers structure collapse, trench, rope and confined-space rescue. All are more specialized than standard firefighter training, he said.
Task force members will rehearse monthly at their departments and quarterly together, Capt. Busby said. There are plans for annual statewide drills once all groups are fully trained.
As with other types of training, Capt. Busby said, turnover and new techniques mean training will be ongoing.
He and others hope to eventually have more than 100 members trained.
The reason for such a large force is manpower, he said. Local firefighters might not be able to respond if their station is short-staffed, or if they already have their own emergencies.
Building teamwork
For about two weeks the firefighters have worked on techniques such as constructing rope bridges, climbing and rappelling and load-moving with ropes.
Each member must learn every portion of a rescue technique, Capt. Busby said. He pointed to a firefighter building a rope bridge between two trees using multiple ropes.
“To work this system in real life, you’d need about 10 people,” Capt. Busby explained.
But for Monday’s test the firefighters will have to run through the drills individually and be graded on proper procedure in a given time.
Some firefighters have training in these areas but still must work with the task force to build team cohesion, Capt. Busby said.
For others dangling 30 feet off the ground is a whole new experience.
“It’s not natural, leaning out on a rack untying knots in your rope,” said Scott Fox, a firefighter with the Calhoun, Ga., Fire Department.
But Mr. Fox said he relaxed after his first few attempts.
“Knowing you’ve got guys you can definitely trust helps,” he said. “This is one group of guys that definitely care about their job.”
Copyright 2008 Chattanooga Publishing Company