There always seems to be such a long gap between our BA drills. And we haven’t had any decent BA jobs recently so last nights BA drill was a welcome ‘refresher’.
The scenario was that we had turned up to a ‘persons reported’ incident at a second-hand furniture store with a flat above.
The first team committed were Andy ‘Cheesey’ Armes, Howard Clarke and Rachael ‘Princess’ O’Connell. They went into the smoke house at first floor level (the flat) and had to find their way to the staircase, down to the ‘shop’ and carry out search and rescue.
Once they had reached the ground floor, our team (myself and Ian ‘Billy’ McMillan) were sent into the flat searching off the lefthand wall. I went as number one, feeling my way through the smoke, doing the BA Shuffle and keeping up a running commentary (this helps to plant the route in your mind and also keeps your oppo informed of what’s happening).
We made our way through the kitchen, lounge and into a small bedroom – searching each room thoroughly as we went. In the bedroom I could just make out the cot and inside a tiny ‘baby’. By rummaging in the bed clothes I found another ‘infant’ while Billy checked the rest of the room. A quick radio message back to BA Entry Control to confirm we had casualties and were making our way out.
Billy took over the lead while I followed carrying the two dummies. Once we had got these outside we checked the contents of our cylinders and then recommitted to complete the search of the ‘flat’.
All in all, it was a good wear – we completed the task, found the casualties and only picked up a few minor learning points…
Time then to service the BA sets and then make up the two hosereels from the Training pump.
The station clock had just summoned up enough energy to nudge over to nine o’clock and the bells went – two pump shout… Read more in the next post…
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