Montgomery County Ice Rescue Training

By Baron Gibson

We had a great training day on Feb. 18th. Water temperature was 37 degrees, air temp was 17. We started the day on a farm pond across from

the Long Shop Mcoy Fire and Rescue station, which was frozen over about 3 inches thick. A fire axe was used to chop a hole in ice around the deepest part of the pond. Elliston Fire Department brought their rubber raft and we trained on several boat rescue techniques, then we applied some of the swift water rescue techniques to ice rescue, we found they worked very well. Some rescues were made with a combination of both, first securing the victim with rope so they would not slip under the ice, then either using the "live bait rescue" technique or boat rescue, and then all three methods at once. We believe we ironed out a lot of unforeseen problems dealing with ice conditions.

Next we visited the New River at the McCoy Falls area. Crossing over to the normal starting area was quite a bit different in winter than summer. We next drifted down the river to see how well the dry suits performed in cold water. At this point we found out that any hair that wasn't covered by a helmet froze into interesting icicles, we could hear Eliza's head jingling behind us as we walked back to our vehicles.

In the conditions we were in and the equipment we had, we concluded that we have about 15 to 20 minutes of usable rescue time before hands got too cold to function properly. Billy has already contacted Diving Enterprises to find out if dry gloves can be adapted to the Kokata dry suit wrist seals.

The participants included 1 member from Blacksburg rescue, 2 members from Longshop Fire & Rescue, and 4 members  from Elliston Fire Department.