Firefighters with Heartland Fire and Rescue in San Diego’s East County are now using a new device to help raise and lower victims in emergency calls – a technique known as “vertical rescue.”
The CMC multi-purpose device streamlines the system of ropes and pulleys firefighters have been using for the last several years.
"It's a little quicker to get down to the patient,” Heartland firefighter Domenic Provence told NBC 7. “We can put this into play fairly quickly just by making it attach to an anchor point."
Currently, the device is being used during training drills on the five-story tower at the Heartland Fire Training Facility in El Cajon.
"Vertical rescues are definitely a diminishing skill, with the rope and just the technical aspect of rescue. If you don't do it for some time, you can lose those skills," Provence explained.
The monthly training exercises include auto extraction, hazmat, wildland, truck operations, and trench rescue. The drills also give crews from different stations, and various levels of experience, an opportunity to work together.
"Part of the training process is not just putting together a scenario that gives us an opportunity to use our skills, but also being creative and coming up with a scenario that challenges us to utilize those skills in a way that we wouldn't normally," said Battalion Chief Brian Manns.
"So when we see those rare instances where you don't have everything falling into place the way you would like, you'll be able to easily adapt and overcome and modify what you know and what your training is,” he added.
Most of the calls Heartland firefighters respond to are medically-related. That's why they spend so much time in training.
Some of that training takes place in a classroom at the Heartland Fire Training Facility.
Firefighters have just started using the newest version of a fire simulation program called “Digital Combustion.”
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Through the program, engineers can work on advancing to a captain's position by learning to take command of an incident.
"From being on an actual fire scene to this, the communication and structure of everything is very realistic," said engineer Ben Jenkins.
The fire scenarios, played out through videos loaded on iPads, also show firefighters the different roles of other crew members.
"It's giving me the chance to kind of make my own choices and get a better understanding of what is going on," said firefighter Nick Pinson.
In 2010, the cities of El Cajon, Lemon Grove and La Mesa combined their fire resources and eight fire stations to form Heartland Fire and Rescue.
Heartland Fire and Rescue Chief Rick Sitta said the joint powers of agreement that consolidated the three departments has made them more effective.
"The efficiencies are created through eliminating redundancies in management positions at the top end," said Chief Sitta. "We combined training and operational efficiencies by being able to intermingle personnel from all three cities and train them all at the same level."
Recently, Heartland Fire and Rescue received a Class 1 rating – a top ranking in the fire department industry – from the Insurance Services Office (ISO).
Chief Sitta said Heartland Fire and Rescue was able to achieve the top rating in large part because of its combined resources, training and documentation program, and fire prevention and community preparedness education.
Of the more than 48,000 fire departments in the United States rated by ISO, only 98 are rated Class 1. The only other agency in San Diego County with the same rating is Poway Fire Department.
"We can always try to gauge our effectiveness by looking in a mirror, but we wanted someone else to tell us where we stood as far as providing the communities with fire suppression capabilities," says Chief Sitta. "We contacted ISO for an evaluation. Through this process, they determined we were doing a pretty darn good job here at Heartland Fire and Rescue."
Heartland firefighters say there's no doubt new technology and better equipment make their jobs easier, but they say that can never take the place of people, who have the training, education and experience to solve problems.
