Al comes up trumps with his CMMI drill…

Just a week ago myself and Nubbs (Paul Newberry) had a less then brilliant BA wear on board a disused naval vessel in Lowestoft Docks.

This Tuesday's drill night would give us a chance to redeem ourselves.

We were going to be drilling with Green Watch from Normanshurst, giving Al Soards the chance to take control of a drill, as he would have to in his upcoming CMMI (Crew Manager, Managing Incidents) course. The big difference with this drill was that Al would have three pumps under his command whereas on the CMMI you only ever use one pump.

Ladder 1 was mobilised to an AFA at a 'childrens home' (the smoke house) and everything else would unfold as a normal incident would. Once Al arrived with Ladder 1 he was able to quickly establish that there was a fire and that anywhere between 5 and 7 children were unaccounted for.

Al immediately escalated the incident to persons reported, which effectively makes the incident a Make Pumps 3 plus you would get an ambulance mobilised too.

A few minutes later Ladder 2 was mobilised (giving the sort of time delay that occurs when we get called in by our alerters). And straight after that we mobilised in the PRT.

When we arrived in the drill yard there was plenty of activity with hosereels out, a covering jet and BAECO being set up.

Myself and Nubbs were briefed that we would shortly be committed to the first floor of the 'childrens home' carrying out search and rescue. We set to work dragging a hosereel out to the base of the external staircase and then extending this to ensure we would have enough to complete our alloted task.

By this time the BA team on the ground floor had found and extinguished the 'fire' and had also located casualties. A second BA team (Andy 'Cheesey' Armes and Rachael 'Princess' O'Connell) were then committed to the ground floor carrying out search and rescue and then proceeding up to the first floor.

Now that the 'fire' was out, Nubbs and I made our way up to the first floor, ready to get on with our brief. We made sure we had at least two lengths of hosereel (40m plus) up on the external landing, enough to comfortably see us round the first floor. Then it was door entry procedures, a gauge check and then into the smoke and darkness. We were taking the left hand wall and Nubbs made his way into the gloom while I pulled in plenty of hosereel.

Within a couple of minutes we were in a room at the back of the property. While Nubbs stayed on the wall I moved out to his right to sweep across the middle of the room. Nubbs found a casualty behind a sofa which he offloaded to me, ready for us to make our exit. We did a quick sweep of the immediate area, just in case there was another casualty close by and then started to retrace our steps. I contacted BAECO to inform them that we had found a casualty and that we were heading out.

In no time we were out into the chill night air and making our way to the external staircase. Backwards down the stairs and report to BAECO with the casualty. It was then that we found out that BAECO hadn't received our messages – so a change of handheld radio and ready for a new brief.

Al instructed us to continue from where we had left off, still doing search and rescue, until we reached the head of the internal stairs. As we were about to enter the building we met up with Cheesey and Princess who were on their way out. They had searched up the stairs and round the other half of the first floor to what we were doing.

Back into the smoke and quck progress to where we had found our casualty. We finished this room and headed into a small bedroom containing a cot. Searching the cot, Nubbs found a 'small child' under the blanket. Again, a quick sweep of the room, under the cot, call up BAECO (they could hear me this time) and hotfoot it out of the building again.

Once down at BAECO the drill was complete. Five casualties (all of them) had been found and brought out of the building.

Everyone was upbeat and all felt they had performed fairly well. Once all the kit was made up and BA sets serviced, Al did his debrief of the drill. He told us of the scenario he was presented with and how the whole thing unfolded. Because of the number of persons reported he had put in an assistance message for Make Pumps 5 and also requested additional ambulances. The debrief was good, filling in the blank bits that we were unaware of and also explaining why things were done, when they were done.

Then it was over to Pete Gray for his overview of the drill. Both Pete and Andy English (Watch Manager of Green Watch) were suitably impressed with how Al handled the drill and for the way in which we all took a 'full and active part', showing good team work and plenty of enthusiasm. Al was also praised for the way in which he handled all the resources he had to hand. Normally, CMMI drills only use one pump. Al had three pumps at his disposal and used them very well…

Hang on a second while we all pat each other on the back. Ah, that feels better!

And after last weeks debacle, it was good to have a decent BA wear, complete our task and take part in a well run drill.

Almost made a Tuesday evening enjoyable…