Butler County Community College professor Chris Calhoun teaches rescue techniques to his students every day.

But during the flooding this past weekend, Calhoun did more than teach.

Calhoun, along with his wife, Kelly, and volunteers from several county fire departments, spent a grueling 12 hours rescuing residents and their pets from the floodwater that ravaged the area.

Four days after the harrowing night of rescues, Calhoun said he is grateful he could use his skills to help so many people when they needed it most.Calhoun said he and his wife were watching the drama unfolding on the news that night when he decided to call Butler County Emergency Services director Frank Matis to offer his help."Once we saw the extent of the flooding on the news, we knew we had to do something to help," Calhoun said.Three hours later, Matis took Calhoun up on his offer.Matis said his agency doesn't usually accept such offers, but decided this was one time it would do so."We've worked with Chris before and we knew he had some specialized training," Matis said. "And this was kind of a unique situation, so we gladly accepted his offer of help."Calhoun and his wife headed to BC3 to collect the equipment he uses to teach his students water rescue techniques."Everyone that was here on staff that evening came over and helped load equipment up," Calhoun said.Calhoun said he is grateful to BC3 for allowing him to use the equipment because it is much better suited for water rescue than some of the equipment volunteer fire departments were using.Calhoun said a friend and fellow instructor, Wade Vagias, agreed to help. Vagias was in West Virginia when he heard the news.Calhoun and Vagias met with the state police at Connoquenessing Elementary School and were immediately sent to the site of a rescue on Brownsdale Road.Calhoun said there was no one at the rescue site when they arrived, but they did notice a bridge appeared to be lifting up from the force of the water near Breakneck Creek."So we figured we'd do something while we were there, and we put up danger tape around the end of the bridge," he said. "The danger tape we put across the road was the easiest thing we did that night."

The first real rescue Calhoun and his crew made was on Wahl Road. It was here they met firefighters from the Unionville Volunteer Fire Department.The Unionville department has a dive rescue team, which is trained to do water rescues.At the first site, four adults, two children, a cat and three dogs were rescued. Crews from the Unionville department worked closely with Calhoun to make sure each person was secured in the raft they were piloting before transporting them to safety.Calhoun said the water rescues were tricky, and although he's trained in such maneuvers, they were a lot different from the situations he's seen before."I've never done a local rescue because of flooding, so it was a new experience for me," he said. "The water was so high in some places we were actually ducking under electrical wires. We were taking people off the second floor decks of their homes."Calhoun said he was impressed with Unionville firefighters and volunteers from other companies who risked their lives that night rescuing others."I can't say enough about what Unionville did out there," he said. "These guys really deserve some recognition for what they did and the circumstances under which they did them."Of the 22 rescues he made that night, Calhoun said the most emotional one, for him, involved firefighters from the Emlenton company.Calhoun and his crew were sent out to find three firefighters from the Emlenton department who lost contact with the station during an attempted rescue in Forward Township. The firefighters' boat had capsized in the deep floodwater."We found the first firefighter hanging on to a utility pole in the floodwater," Calhoun said.The other two were found about 100 yards downstream from where the first firefighter was rescued.Because the current was so swift, the rescue was hard for Calhoun and the others assisting him.Mark Lauer, Unionville fire chief, was out of town and unable to be reached for comment.Other departments that assisted with rescues include the Evans City Fire/Rescue team, the Connoquenessing Fire/Rescue team and MedEvac EMS.

Calhoun said he'll never forget that night or the many rescues he helped make.Although he was thankful everything went well, Calhoun said he plans to use the experience as a way to help improve the training he offers his students at BC3.Calhoun has filmed all of the locations where he helped rescue people and plans to use that as part of his teaching at BC3."We did a very good job with what we had, but there are improvements that need to be made in case we ever have to do this again," Calhoun said.Those improvements include better training for volunteer firefighters and accessibility to the appropriate equipment for water rescues."Most of these guys have limited training and this type of situation really pushed the skill level of some of them," Calhoun said.Matis said the reason most firefighters don't have water rescue training is because it rarely is needed here."There has never been that much of a demand for water rescues in the county, so it doesn't make sense they'd spend time and money on training for it," Matis said. "Unionville has a water rescue department, and that's all the more we usually need."Despite their limitations, Calhoun said the volunteers need to be recognized for their efforts."The majority of these rescues happened at night in dangerous conditions," Calhoun said. "And the majority of those performing these rescues were volunteers, and they need to be commended."