By John Latimer
The Lebanon Daily News (Pennsylvania)
Copyright 2006 Lebanon Daily News
All Rights Reserved
A group of Lebanon firefighters took a dip in the pool at Coleman Memorial Park yesterday morning.
It wasn’t a “goodbye-to-summer” party that lured the firefighters into the chilly water. The reason for the swim was to allow them to train with new water rescue equipment the city recently purchased.
With a $1,000 grant from Penn Prime — a municipal insurance trust to which Lebanon belongs — and about $400 from the city’s general fund, the Lebanon Bureau of Fire bought a boatload of equipment that can be used in water rescues. Among the items were a pair of cold water/exposure rescue suits, several swift-water rescue vests, rescue line bags of various length, and rescue vests and thermal blankets for victims, said Deputy Fire Commissioner Chris Miller.
“This was all basically brought on by an increase in our water-rescue calls in the last couple of years due to serious flooding,” he said. “Before now, we didn’t have any of the proper rescue equipment.”
Last year, city firefighters made several such rescues. And during June’s flooding alone, they rescued four people from cars stranded in floodwater on Reinoehl Street and pulled five youths from the Hazel Dike after they were carried 10 blocks in surging storm water, Miller said. One of them nearly drowned.
The decision to obtain water-rescue equipment arose after a dangerous rescue in early spring 2005, Miller said, when a mentally unstable man climbed into a large drainage pipe filled with frigid water near the 1100 block of Guilford Street.
“We had to go in and retrieve him,” he said. “And we had some people exposed to cold water.”
Eight firefighters took part in yesterday’s exercise in the Lauther Water Complex at Gingrich Memorial Pool. To familiarize themselves with the equipment, they spent about two hours taking turns rescuing each other.
In the near future, a water-rescue instructor from the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission will be brought in to teach and certify all of the city’s paid firefighters in boat- and water-rescue techniques, Miller said. The training is also being offered to any volunteer who is interested.
The boat-rescue training could come in handy at Stoever’s Dam, he noted.
“Our goal,” he said, “is to train all available personnel in how to use the equipment and certify them so everyone is cross-trained and we can split crews when we need to make more than one rescue at a time.”
The Penn Prime grant was one of two the city received this year, said Trish Ward, director of administration. Another, for $1,000, was used to buy a sensor to detect dangerous gases when City of Lebanon Authority employees read meters that are located in confined areas underground.