Photos by Zach Cerny Firefighters (from left) Chief Chapman, Adam Lopez, Jason Trujillo, Eric Treinen, Caylum Atencio pull a rescuer and victim to safety during ice rescue training Jan. 30 at Cattails Golf Course in Alamosa. Instructor Phil Beckman is shown at right watching the group put into action the training they have been undergoing.

New equipment and training

enhance

lifesaving



By ERIC MULLENS

ALAMOSA — There are now 11 volunteers of the Alamosa Fire Department who have had hands-on ice rescue experience without any lives being endangered.

AFD Chief Don Chapman said this week that classroom and live exercise training has taken place with 16 volunteers going through the classroom portion of ice rescue and 11 working fairly comfortably in icy water at Cattails Golf Course last Saturday.

Chapman said the plan to add ice rescue to the department’s training had been planned for the past couple of years, and with the recent addition of two volunteers trained in the technique the timing was perfect.

The department bought the ice rescue equipment, with the initial purchase of four specialized suits, a combination of a diver’s dry suit with special buoyancy features, a floatation device, two rescue slings and rescue rope which include ‘throw bags’.

Alamosa firefighters, under the direction of volunteers Mike Maier and Phil Beckman, both trained in ice rescue at Palmer Lake Fire Department, began training recently and attended the formal classroom session on Thur., Jan. 28, followed by a ‘day at the lake’ at Cattails Golf Course on Sat., Jan. 30.

The class cut a triangle shape out of the 18-inch thick ice covering the largest and deepest pond of the golf course, the one located between the golf cart and maintenance buildings, and began their training in the icy water.

Chapman said with the appropriate equipment, the session was a little easier than he had anticipated.

Chapman said the equipment, while designed to cope with the harsh environment of an ice rescue, may also be used for conventional water rescue if need be.

On Saturday, Maier and Beckman instructed the class with Maier staying in the water and Beckman teaching the rope and retrieval techniques from the banks of the pond. “Everyone trained at the three stations, in the water and as a primary and secondary rescue person,” Chapman said.

He said the training was very realistic and simulated real-life rescue situations. He said all the members were trained in the rope and sling rescue, which entails pulling both the victim and one rescue specialist out of the ice at the same time.

Chapman said with the arrival of the two new volunteers who were trained in ice rescue, the department began purchasing equipment in late 2009. Maier joined the AFD in July 2009 when he relocated to the Valley and took a position with SunEdison. Beckman also moved to the Valley from the Palmer Lake area and joined the fire department in November.

He said the department searched a variety of companies that provide a rescue floatation device to find one that would fit into the tight confines of a rescue truck. He said the one the department purchased is a self-contained self-inflating item that can support the weight of at least one person when fully inflated. The device is used by a rescue specialist to move across thin ice to get to a victim.

Although not a common occurrence, an ice or water emergency is not unheard of in Alamosa or the Valley. Chapman recalled a rescue of a person from the Rio Grande River several years ago and of course the rescue attempt of a young boy who fell into a pond in March 2008 by Alamosa County Sheriff’s Deputy Mark Thompson.

On that cold March 1 day, Thompson was the first to arrive on scene when it was reported a three-year old child had fallen into the pond in front of Johnson Trailer Park on US Hwy. 160 and Alamosa County Road 112.

Thompson had to swim 30-yards unaided into the middle of the pond where Bradley Castleberry was floating face down.

“There was ice in the middle,” Thompson recalled on the day of his award ceremony. “I had to break through the ice to get to him. There was a hole where he was at. I could tell he had gotten to a point and dropped right down through the ice,” Thompson said.

“I knew the water was going to be cold, and I hoped I could get to the center of the pond and back before hypothermia hit me,” he said.

Despite what can be described as a truly heroic effort, Bradley died at a hospital after being flown out of the Valley via air ambulance.

Thompson was treated at San Luis Valley Regional Medical Center for hypothermia as a result of the rescue.

The self sacrificing nature of a rescue worker’s profession and the addition of the new equipment along with intensive training may help save lives in the future when someone has fallen through thin ice.