We were all set for a talk from the police accident investigator but this was cancelled because, you've guessed it – he'd had an accident. Hopefully not a bad one but enough to mean the talk had to be called off.
So we attended a chemical incident instead on the front grass at Normanshurst.
Ladder 2 turned out first to reports of children that had collapsed close to some drums of chemicals.
A BA team from Ladder 2 (Rachael and Peter Read) carried out a snatch rescue while the rest of the crew started to prepare for the full chemical circus.
We arrived on the ERT and helped to cordon off the area – hot, warm and cold, put together the decontamination dam, laid out the hosereel, buckets, brushes, emergency air supply from 2 BA sets, four Gas Tight Suits (GTS), paperwork – the list goes on…
The first GTS team of 'Cheesey' Armes and Jason Balls were committed to the scene to get more information about the leaking chemical. They were closely followed by the second GTS team of Paul 'Nubbs' Newberry and Peter Read. The second team would be relaying the chemical information back to BAECO so that more details could be gleaned about the chemical and its potential dangers.
Part way through the exercise Jason, at a signal from Mel, collapsed in a heap with an Oscar winning performance. The other 3 GTS wearers initially just stood there and stared at the crumbled heap of yellow plastic on the grass in front of them. Then, galvanised into action, they reported back to BAECO that they had a 'firefighter down' and proceeded to drag Jason towards the decontamination area.
The rescue of Jason wasn't easy. For a start moving in a GTS isn't very easy let alone trying to grip a lifeless form in another GTS and carry him 50m to the decontamination area. The plastic viewing panels were steaming up as Cheesey, Nubbs and Peter burnt some calories lugging their casualty to safety. Every so often you'd see an arm swipe across the plastic window like a windscreen wiper just to give them a glimpse of where they were heading.
And finally they made it. With much hilarity for the onlookers, Jason was dumped, unceremoniously into the dam. And while he was being taken care of by the decontamination team we had to give the emergency supply of air to two of the rescue party.
Once all four GTS wearers had been washed down and stripped of their GTS suits we had a quick debrief before making all the equipment up.
Not sure what all the passing motorists thought of this spectacle unfolding before their eyes – Gas Tight Suits, decontamination, casualties… Perhaps they thought that we were rehearsing for when / if swine flu finds its way into sleepy old Suffolk!
It was a good drill, everyone enjoyed it and got something out of it and, more importantly, it makes the two hour training night go so much more quickly…