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Last Updated: Nov 14, 2008 - 12:49:26 PM |
Many in our organization will not soon forget Wednesday, September 10. For one company, the morning started with a double shooting while the scuba rescue team was assisting with a dive operation in Colonial Heights. I was riding an ambulance out of Bensley Station 3, and #14 had a fill-in engine from #17, and Truck 14 in service. It just happened that the two of us that were on the ambulance decided to eat an early lunch, and had just gotten back in quarters when a technical rescue assignment was dispatched to Centre St. in Chester for a building collapse. Moments later, three ambulances were added to the assignment, which included our ambulance. This was one of those calls for Station 1 where marking en route and marking on scene come within seconds of one another. The officer on Engine 1 was a Firefighter Specialist and Tech Rescue member, which makes me know that Lord is even involved in where firefighters are riding.
One person tragically lost his life in this collapse, and my prayers go out to this family. Most of the workers had just taken a break for lunch; therefore the building was practically empty. Speaking of lunch, you remember that our ambulance crew had eaten an early lunch; the majority of the responders had not eaten lunch. Even the Battalion Chief who would become the Incident Commander was headed into Chester to get some lunch, at the time of the call. This would all be taken care of by the auxiliary from Company 13, and the generosity of many. One example was when the Chester Village Senior Apartments opened their facility for rescuers to have a place to eat, go to the bathroom, and even rest for what was to become a twelve-hour incident on that Wednesday.
I can probably name on one hand and maybe with one finger the number of days in my 23-year career where two specialty teams have been involved in two different major incidents at the same time. The dive call and the tech rescue call both involved multiple jurisdictions. This is a tremendous testimony to the benefit of our teams training with other departments, which has been going on for some time. No rescuers were injured in either incident, which is a testimony to our attention to safety. Understand, for our divers and our tech rescue members, both of these calls were extremely dangerous conditions to work in.
While applauding our members, I must acknowledge that this incident got national media coverage. Our department’s Public Information Officers, in conjunction with Chesterfield County’s Department of Public Affairs, did an outstanding job handling a barrage of media personnel that might not have known that Chester was even on the map.
Don’t get me wrong; I am sure that future discussions and critiques will show us areas where we can improve. The mark of a progressive organization is one that celebrates its successes, and improves upon the areas that need improvement. Our personnel were trained and ready for these incidents. I pray that you can rest a little easier knowing this.
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