Friday, January 28, 2011

Great Training at the soon-to-be-demolished YMCA


Had a great drill at work the other day. We crawled around the YMCA for four hours on search and rescue missions. Wax paper in our face pieces prevented us from seeing where we were going. It was a great exercise in endurance, teamwork, communication and skills. We were only "on air" for one of the drills - the longest and most involved. We all sucked our 45 minute bottles down to the low air alarm! My knees are still a little sore as is my back! There were a lot of tight spaces to crawl through.

In between sessions, I poked around the building and wound up by the swimming pool. It suddenly hit me - all the hours I had spent there while my kids took swim lessons over the years. And now it looked like any other urban exploration derelict. Kinda weird. Kinda sad.

Anyway, Thanks to the SFD and Dean Pearcy for the great pictures. You can see more on the SFD's awesome blog here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hold yourself Evilelf, I was at the same building, lost in the dark with 4 of my friends! We found our way out after 4 hours of crawling. It was a great drill, Engine 3 crew were great. Thanks to training for a tough mental and physical workout. They hit a home run with this one. A couple of times I didn't fit quite so easily as you. I had to butter myself to slip through! Glad you made it.

EvilElf said...

Anon, I agree. I thought the training was excellent. We should do this stuff more often.

Did you have your crew butter you up?