Hovland and Colvill firefighters participated in a night time rescue exercise. Training Officer Joe Peterson set up a scenario that involved fire department, EMS and STOP team members.
Anyone monitoring Hovland area emergency radios late in the evening on Thursday, September 22 would have been alarmed to hear of a terrible collision between a bicyclist and a pickup truck on North Road. Hovland First Responders and the Hovland Safety Team Operational Patrol (STOP) gathered at the Hovland Fire Hall and mobilized to respond to the crisis in the darkness. Fortunately it was all an exercise put together by Hovland Fire Department Training Officer Joe Peterson.
Peterson said the accident “victim” was actually a training manikin dubbed “Woody” and in addition to First Responders and ambulance crew members working to “save” him, the training session gave new members of the STOP team the opportunity to hone their skills.
The STOP team and emergency responders worked on blocking techniques (using vehicles to protect emergency workers from passing traffic) and managing traffic flow from both directions (upstream and downstream in STOP team lexicon).
Responders had to locate the “victim” of a bicycle and truck collision.
The nighttime exercise also gave the Hovland Fire Department the chance to use its new pumper in the dark, firing up the generator and setting up the scene lights.
Peterson arranges training for Hovland emergency services twice a month and the STOP team participates in one training each month.
“Woody” didn’t survive the accident, said Peterson, but he explained that patient care wasn’t the ultimate concern during this training event. Peterson said the goal was to familiarize all departments with equipment and to practice working together on an incident at night. “It was a very successful training,” he said.
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