What started out as a conversation between Jefferson County Sheriff Tony Hernandez and Ed Wilkerson, Port Ludlow Fire & Rescue’s chief, became a money-saving joint technical rescue team made up of deputies, firefighters and emergency rescuers.
The team is training to rescue those, for example, who crash their cars down embankments or fall down steep bluffs and are seriously injured.
Besides Hernandez and six Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office deputies, the 20-member team is also represented by eight Port Ludlow firefighters, four with East Jefferson Fire-Rescue and two Jefferson Search & Rescue members.
They trained Wednesday at the 20-foot-high Benson Battery at Fort Worden State Park, taking turns hoisting a litter with members from the team, taking turns as volunteer rescue victims, including Hernandez and Assistant Fire Chief Randy Coggan with Port Ludlow Fire & Rescue.
Save money, improve rescue operations
Hernandez and Wilkerson said the team was formed so that the public safety agencies could save tax dollars and make rescue operations faster and more efficient.
“It makes sense for the sheriff’s office to be involved because we’re mostly first on the scene to a critical event,” Hernandez said at the training session.
The sheriff said trained deputies will be enabled to assess such a rescue scene and relay details to team members at fire stations and search and rescue.
“It’s a sharing of resources,” Hernandez said that saves money at a time that Jefferson County government, his office and fire departments are squeezed for revenue.
Wilkerson said his talks with Hernandez originally focused on uniting to develop the county’s marine rescue operations, but it led to putting together the technical rescue team.
Such a team requires at least nine members to assess, treat and hoist a victim at a scene in steep terrain or a vertical structure such as a tower or tall building.
“The nature of technical rescue is, it is very labor-intensive,” Wilkerson said.
Training on ‘Big Blue’
Training resumes today at Naval Magazine Indian Island where team members will take turns rappelling down the first 80 feet of the 170-foot crane on the base’s ordnance loading pier known as “Big Blue.”
The team was trained by two rescuers with 10 years experience with Rescue Systems Northwest, owned by Capt. Mike Hollingsworth and Firefighter Bill Dunlap with Clark County Fire District No. 6.
Hollingsworth was a member of the Mount St. Helens Rescue Team.
The team is supported by a Rescue 31 special operations vehicle that contains all the equipment needed to rescue involving steep terrain, high places or even fuel or water tanks where a victim has fallen inside.
The vehicle and associated rescue equipment, which Wilkerson valued at about $60,000, was 80 percent funded by the Federal Emergency Management Administration through a Fire Act grant.
The sheriff’s office and fire-rescue agencies are splitting the cost of the week’s training at about $15,000 for instruction, trainee overtime, food and lodging.
Wilkerson said this week’s technical training is the next step in improving rescue operations.
Earlier training
In March 2009, Port Ludlow Fire & Rescue team members trained with Poulsbo firefighters on Hood Canal Bridge to be prepared in the event a Hood Canal Bridge project worker fell or was injured in the May-June project to replace the floating bridge’s east half.
In September, they put their training to work when they joined to rescue worker who fell about 15 feet into an access cell in a bridge pontoon.
Hernandez, who sported a yellow rescue helmet during training Wednesday, described his turn at dangling some 20 feet in a litter as something he would rather avoid in the future.
“It’s a very uncomfortable feeling,” Hernandez said.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
