There were 37 members from seven different districts cutting their way through a full weekend of Motor Vehicle Incident (MVI) training, held at the Emergency Service Training Centre on Exeter Road in 100 Mile House.
KGC Fire Rescue trainers George Klemm and Steven Carpenter and three other instructors coached firefighters of different departments, including 100 Mile House, Lone Butte, Lac la Hache, 108 Mile, Clinton, Hope and Miocene.
All these departments are manned by volunteers.
On Sept. 16-18, the men and women participated in different motor vehicle accident “stations.” Some of the firefighters played the part of the “victim” who had to be rescued.
“Overall, the participants were challenged throughout the weekend with multiple scenarios,” says 100 Mile House Fire-Rescue chief Darrell Blades. “They were introduced to some new techniques.”
Firefighters were assigned to the different stations, including awareness, operations and technician. Each station had an instructor, and each member played his or her role from incident commander to victim.
The MVI weekend used 20 vehicles to demonstrate various accidents, Blades says, adding Henderson Contracting donated a loader and a logging truck to help out with the “accidents.”
One of the vehicles was a 2010 Camero, Blades says, adding newer vehicles have challenges with the different metals and air bags.
“They got to spend lots of time on the variety of tools used in extrication, including hand, electric, air and hydraulic tools.”
Blades notes they worked with vehicles on their wheels, side and roof and experienced multi-vehicle and multi-patient incidents.
There was a good cross mix of departments participating with the three levels of training, he adds.
“It was a busy weekend and, overall, it ran very smoothly.”
