Fire Department to bring back Heavy Rescue program
Preparing for an uptick in major Strip construction projects, the Clark County Fire Department is restoring a special unit with expertise in rescuing people at high altitudes, underneath structure collapses and in other high-risk situations.
The county’s Heavy Rescue program has been defunct since June 2010 when its duties were outsourced to the city of Las Vegas. County fire officials say the program should be up and running again by July.
Fire Chief Greg Cassell said his staff is preparing for the inevitable.
“There’s an awful lot of construction accidents we know are coming because of the impending high-rise construction, and this crew will handle those rescues,” he said. “They’ll be hanging off of cranes, they’ll be going into tunnels and caissons to help people who are trapped.”
In preparation to launch the new unit, Battalion Chief Leo Durkin led a training exercise Wednesday morning near Durango High School.
Firefighters positioned a giant metal tripod over an open manhole. Using a winch and rope they lowered one man at a time through the opening and 40 feet down to the bottom of an underground flood control tunnel.
A team on the surface sent down oxygen and communications through tubes and wires.
Once at the bottom, the firefighters traveled as far as oxygen tubes allowed them. Then, engulfed in darkness, they switched their oxygen source to a small orange bottle attached to each firefighter’s hip and made their way back for extraction.
The exercise prepared firefighters to rescue people trapped or incapacitated inside confined spaces, Durkin said.
RESCUE
one felony count of making threats or conveying false information concerning acts of terrorism.
Two judges have ordered that Hodges be held on $15,000 bail and confined to a mental health facility, where
he will undergo treatment while he awaits trial.
Dickerson said Hodges boasted he would wear a Gopro camera during his act of violence.
Inside Hodges’ vehicle authorities discovered a diary, which stated that “Stephen Paddock had stolen his idea on 1 October” and that he admired the Columbine High School shooters,
Dickerson said. Since 2016, Hodges has been the “subject of multiple suspicious activity reports” and posted threats on Instagram, the prosecutor said.
In May, Hodges, an amateur adult film actor with an explicitly pornographic Twitter account, made homicidal and suicidal threats after he wasfiredasalyftdriver,accordingto
Dickerson, and the company later obtained a protective order against him.
After the Mandalay Bay massacre, the prosecutor said, Hodges posted on social media: “#I will score more than 58.”
Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@ reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.