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Engineering Epic Adventures Since 2008
Improving Firefighter Training Safety with Fire Engineer Wyatt Koeniger
My name is Wyatt Koeniger. I'm a 23-year Fire Engineer veteran with Arvada Fire Department here in Arvada, Colorado.
At Arvada Fire, the TRUBLUE SafeLine Controlled Descent Device has significantly enhanced safety across our firefighter training program. Specifically, it has revolutionized our rope rescue training and firefighter survival training.
We use TRUBLUE SafeLines in a lot of different situations, including ladder bailouts and victim removal with live victims and dummies. They have also improved safety and efficiency in our combat challenge, Candidate Physical Ability Test (CPAT), and anytime we need a safety line in place of a belay. We use them as a safety system for lowering either a hose or a weighted device in our candidate testing too.
How has the TRUBLUE SafeLine improved firefighter training safety?
Recently a few teammates and I were remarking how far our training program has come and how we used to rely onfigure eights and our old safety and belay lines. Now, we use the controlled descent system as a safety line in those training scenarios. It has improved efficiency and safety of our training program.
It's improved efficiency in reps, but also its improved the safety aspect.
With the SafeLine, you remove human errors, like if the person is belaying is paying attention. We no longer have to ask, ‘Is there proper tension on the safety line?’ ‘Is there slack?’ 'Is there too much tension on the safety line or not enough tension?’ You don't have to worry if they are paying attention, looking at their phone, or distracted by something else.
The human element is completely removed, and that really helps.
In addition, you don't have to untie any knots. You just walk up, unclip the carabiner, and the next person's ready to go. They remove their main line, they remove their safety line, and you can get people through.
On a regular day, we go through countless drills within 30 to 40 minutes. In the past, it was untying figure eights or untying knots and then the safety line and then the main line. Now it's just the carabiner. Clip in the carabiner and the next person goes through.
Do you feel safer using a TRUBLUE SafeLine?
Just today I tried a new system on the self-bailout where I self-rescue. There's no ladder and I have to roll out of the window. My captain had his device and said, ‘Why don't you try mine?’ Well, it was a modified controlled descent device. I wasn't familiar with the device, but there's no way really to try it until you go out the window.
Knowing that the TRUBLUE system is up there, regardless of what I am attached to on my main line, I know my safety is going to work.
I know my safety is okay, and it's going to slowly descend me to the ground.
With the SafeLine, I was confident throwing that last leg out and going out over the window. Regardless of being a little afraid of heights or not, you trust you’re safe to go out and try.
How does firefighter training with the TRUBLUE SafeLine compare to the way you trained before?
Two years ago, we went to a bailout training, and I remember talking to my crew and we said, ‘If this is bad, we're going to tell them that we're not doing this.’ Because we heard other crews were using mattresses or gym pads on the ground to protect a fall.
I said, ‘I'm not ending my career over this. I'm not afraid of heights, but I don't want to go out and get hurt.’
I don't mind getting hurt saving somebody's life. I don't even mind getting killed saving somebody's life. But I really don't want to get hurt in training. TRUBLUE Safe Line helps ensure that, because it works and it's safe.
With TRUBLUE SafeLine, you can actually see how your gear performs during a real fall. When you load the system, you feel exactly what it’s like. That experience is important.
And again, TRUBLUE SafeLine affords that opportunity. I can't get that anywhere else.
Any final thoughts about training with TRUBLUE SafeLine?
You can make training more realistic. You can make it efficient. You can make it practical.
There's nothing worse in training than thinking, ‘This isn't the way we really do it. This isn't the way it really works.’ The training feels ineffective. When training is realistic, then I gain the confidence that I can do it. When the bell goes off at two in the morning, I know I’ve got it in me.
TRUBLUE SafeLine affords me that opportunity.
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