Rescue Technicians are more than firefighters – they’re trained to perform highly technical rope and confined space rescues. The Rescue Technician I Course was a 15-day firefighter training course taught by the USAFE Fire Academy, held from September 30 to October 18, at the 435th Construction and Training Squadron compound near Ramstein Air Base, Germany. (U.S. Air Force video by Staff Sgt. Kirsten Brandes)
Transcript
It’s kind of nerve-wracking, you know, going off a building connected to a rope.
For this, it’s kinda specialty in the Fire Department, so, you know, you have like the EMT’s who specialize in the medical portion, well this is another specialty. When we’re dealing with rescue, it’s getting out there, helping out, and getting people out of bad situations.
People work on top of buildings everyday, people go in confined spaces doing work everyday, and, you know, things happen.
I found him, Country’s coming up.
[Instructor] Check line before you use this.
Nice and easy.
Maybe not so much everyday, but, when situations happen, you want the people around to be prepared to utilize their training to actually help those people out. We don’t want to be reactive, we want to be proactive.
So you have your suspended victim, right? So how long do you have?
30 minutes.
30 minutes, Right?
[Instructor] It’s amazing just to see the progression of the students. So day one, a lot of these ladies and gentlemen, you know, they haven’t had a lot of experience, and, you know, we take baby steps, we show them how to do it, and then you allow them a time to try out those systems and—
Alright Sarge, I’m good to go.
[Instructor] As the weeks progress you see them get better at tying ropes and knots, we see them get better at making the systems, and we see them get more comfortable on the wall. So, from day one, not knowing anything to, you know the end of instruction at day fifteen, and getting that certification and having the confidence in them to now use the knowledge that they have gained, it’s almost like seeing a little brother, or a little sister graduate, you know? So it’s a good feeling.
Yay, my heroes!
Congratulations.