Water rescuers ready to face challenges
From floods to icy creeks and ponds to rapid-moving water, Butler County's Water Rescue Team 300 seemingly does it all.
That level of preparedness, though, takes hours upon hours of practice.
The rescue team trains both among itself and with others in Western Pennsylvania to keep their skills in tip-top shape. And they get to test out new rescue devices in the process, too.
“Any time we get new toys, it's like getting yourself a new truck,” said Mark Adomaitis, rescue team chief.The team's newest toy is an NRS ASR 155, a 15-foot-5-inch, all-surface rescue boat. Adomaitis said the boat, which the team just purchased, is a “great asset,” because it has openings on both ends.On ice, the boat provides a level of safety to rescuers because it lessens the chance of ice breaking.“Because of its length, the rescuers can slide it out on the ice, and they're pushing down with their weight and that distributes the weight over a larger surface area,” said Chris Calhoun, a member of the rescue team, leader of the state fish and boat commission water-rescue instructor trainers and author of the commonwealth's rescue training programs.The boat's design functions extend beyond its size, too. Its bow and stern are open, which gives rescuers an advantage when pulling into a rescue scenario.“It's open on both ends, so we're able to take that out, and it's lightweight,” Adomaitis said. “One or two guys can grab a hold of that and drag it or slide it across the ice. You can take it up to a person who fell through the ice, pull them out,” put the person on the boat and haul the person to safety.And if the ice breaks? “You're on a boat,” he said.But the new equipment's benefits extend beyond ice rescues. Because it's lightweight, it can help the team rescue victims during flooding or swift water rescues.
A tool is only as valuable as the hands utilizing it. For the rescue team, that tool could be in any number of situations, too.“With the flooding that we seem to have here just about every year, sometimes it's in May, sometimes it's in January, you never know,” Adomaitis said. “We kind of get a little bit of everything thrown to us.”Because of the different scenarios into which the rescue team could be placed in action, that makes its monthly training sessions necessary. What they train on depends on the weather, and the natural resources around Butler County affords it the opportunity to train on different rescues.“What's nice is, being that we're located in Zelienople, we work with Moraine State Park rangers all the time,” Adomaitis said. “So we have ideal conditions. We take the boats, we work on the ice, we work on open water, up at Moraine. We also have access to Slippery Rock Creek at McConnells Mill State Park.”With the cold water recently, Adomaitis said the team has been able to train more on ice. That will change, though, when the weather heats up.
Teams throughout Western Pennsylvania train together, too, because working together is an integral part of the job. Large-scale exercises involving multiple rescue teams is a common occurrence.“All of that is for the different teams to get together, to work and plan and practice, because all of us can be called for mutual aid to help other individual teams,” Calhoun said. “It's not uncommon for Butler Team 300 to request assets from Beaver Falls or Lower Kiski Team 340 to come assist us.”This month, though, the teams worked together on a smaller scale due to the pandemic. Rather than all 14 counties in Region 13 coming together and training, Butler trained with the Lower Kiski team at Moraine State Park.At the exercise, members from both teams practiced both self-rescue and ice rescue, with Team 300's 15-foot boat making an appearance.“Before we do anything, everyone goes through their PPE and everyone checks to make sure zippers are closed and collars are cinched and all that stuff,” Adomaitis said. “There's the safety briefing, accountability on shore before we do anything, and then we break up into small teams of three or four people. These guys will review how to use the rescue sling, how to use the throw bag, things like that.“While the guys are practicing their skills on shore, some of these guys are going through their self rescue and then being rescued.”The teams' winter training isn't their only event, either. In the fall, Adomaitis said, Team 300 goes to Venango County to practice boat operations.“It's the same thing,” he said. “We get together with the teams from the region, we bring our boats up there, and we go up there and put guys on rocks or in the water, practice our boat maneuvers and also rescuing people.”
It's a lot of preparation. But it helps with a ton of good.Adomaitis said the team was exceptionally busy in 2020, given the pandemic.“With COVID, you have more people outdoors this past year than you ever had before, so we did a number of rescues at Moraine and at the Mills this year,” he said.Team 300 also recently received word it is the recipient of the Higgins and Langley Memorial Awards for Swift Water Rescue, an international award given for exceptional responses. Butler's water rescuers received the award for incident response.“We were recognized for our rescues that took place in May of 2019, specifically on May 28, where we were in operation for 24 hours due to flooding,” Adomaitis said. “In that time span, we rescued 29 adults, eight children and 10 pets.”Along the Connoquenessing Creek that day, the water flow grew from 700 cubic feet per second to more than 17,000 CFS, a 2400% increase that Adomaitis described as “even greater than Hurricane Ivan.”
