Ice escapades
Training helps prepare for the real thing
Brookfield and Stewiacke firefighters cut a whole through six inches of ice with an axe and then made Brookfield’s deputy chief splash around in the frigid water for two and a half hours.
The two departments joined up for ice rescue training on Shortts Lake Monday night to get familiar with each other’s equipment and procedures.
Rob Bezanson, deputy chief with Brookfield Fire and Emergency Services, played the role of the person stranded in the ice while teams of two practised hauling him out of the water with a special inflatable boat.
“It’s something we try to do a couple of times a year but for sure at least once a year,” said Bezanson. “We have a lot of recreational waters in our district and we need to be prepared in
case we’re called to do a rescue.”
Brookfield has had its rapid deployment craft for about 15 years. The thick rubber boat is kept folded up on the truck and can be inflated using an air cylinder from a firefighter’s breathing apparatus in just over two minutes.
Bezanson and three other firefighters took ice rescue training at the Nova Scotia Firefighters School in Waverley about the same time the department acquired the craft. The fire departments also wear immersion suits to keep the firefighters warm and provide flotation.
“It’s good to get familiar with hauling someone out of the water,” said Bezanson. “It’s not as easy as just walking up to someone, extending your hand and pulling them out – and we have flotation suits – it can be a lot harder if someone’s clothes are soaked with water and they are frozen to the ice.”
Firefighters also were able to jump in the water and practise self-rescues.
“There is very little friction,” says Bezanson. “We carry ice pickets in our pockets so we can pull ourselves up on the ice – if you didn’t have them you’d have to use some real technique to get out.”
Bezanson says the ice was strong for this exercise but he’d like to try something more challenging.
“Usually if we get a call, the ice is going to be much thinner, something a person could fall through,” he said. “I’d like to do another training night with much thinner ice, candle ice, where it is just made of little straws – it is a lot harder to reach the person when you have to swim and crawl through that kind of ice and water.”