RIC Training night...

On Monday night at our academy training we were to be trained on act as RIC (Rapid Intervention Crew) members. Basically what a RIC crew does, is go interior and quickly but safely retrieve a downed firefighter, or at least replenish there air tank.

Over the course of the night we were put into a series of scenarios of darkness, heat, and obstacles. We were in full gear with our SCBA's on, to completely simulate a real situation as best we could. Everything was going great, until they decided to start throwing some curve balls at us.

During some of the scenarios they would gently reach out and turn off our air tank without us knowing. When this happens we are to notify our partner and hold our breath. Then he is supposed to pull an extra air line and connect it to me so I can breathe off of his bottle, then we evacuate. This is obviously to simulate me running out of air.

It works great, but when your partner isn't very fast (like mine) you cant hold your breath anymore... You gotta get air from some where but its just not there.

Well this is pretty much what happened to me on Monday. I guess what I'm tryin to make a point about is... You really don't know what its like until it happens. But it made me question how bad I wanted to be a firefighter... And decided... Regardless of the risk to my own life, I want it more then anything.

- Justin

posted by Unknown at 8:32 PM