Cedar City firefighters participate in advanced extrication training

CEDAR CITY — Cedar City firefighters took part in advanced training Thursday night to learn new methods for extracting injured people from wrecked vehicles.

Fire Chief Mike Phillips told Cedar City News firefighters receive regular weekly training courses, and Thursday’s advanced extrication course was part of their technical rescue training.

“We do trainings every Tuesday night,” Phillips said. “Every third Thursday is our TRT training, so we come out and we do some specialized technical rescue training.” 

The training involved a scenario in which one vehicle was on top of another vehicle that was upside down. Firefighters were able to work through several methods for getting someone out of those vehicles. 

“Instead of being a car that’s on its wheels and we just pop the doors, this is a lot more complex to dig into it,” Phillips said.

Phillips said the first step in extrication for this scenario was to stabilize both vehicles using a variety of methods. 

“They’ve locked the two cars together, they’ve got some struts and they’ve got cribbing underneath it,” Phillips said. “Then they disconnect the batteries so the airbags don’t go off, then they go in and do the extrication.”

Phillips said the training and all the tools are offered by the Utah Fire Rescue Academy. 

“Utah Fire Rescue Academy brings us the tools and equipment, so as a city we don’t have to take our equipment off of our trucks to do the class,” he said. 

Phillips said although trainings like these are fast-paced and mimic actual incidents. They also allow firefighters to work through scenarios and problem solve without the added pressures of a real car wreck.

The Utah Fire Rescue Academy is part of Utah Valley University and focuses on providing training and fire-related higher education to firefighters across the state.

Click on photo to enlarge it, then use your left-right arrow keys to cycle through the gallery.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!