Day 2 and 3 of RIT school

Whew, it's been a while, but, well, some other things came up, and a silly little blog like this didn't seem important anymore. Anyway, here is the end of my little adventure in Tuscaloosa. Enjoy!

We spent the second day going through a confined space maze. Basically you are in the dark navigating through increasingly tight spaces, finding your way through pipes, holes, trap doors, and all kinds of other fun stuff. It's kind of neat, but I enjoy the feeling of conquering it MUCH more than the feeling I have while I am in the midst of it. Several times the opening I went through was narrower than my shoulders and low enough that you had to be flat on your belly. This type of thing is neither my favorite nor my best, but I made it. Lots of these things are just to prove you are willing and able to do it, not necessarily that you can do it fast.



After lunch the second day we learned how to move a downed firefighter up and down stairs, as well as different ways to get them out a window and onto a ladder so someone can carry them down. I much prefer being the rescuer than the victim in these, the victim just has to hope everyone knows what they are doing. Luckily I was the biggest guy in the class, so they limited my time as victim and used me more for moving people around. We also spent some time learning what to do if we are trapped or lost. They do this by having you cover your mask so you can't see, and while crawling and searching, they'll jump on you with a section of chain link fence and pin you down, to see how you react and make sure you remember your training. I had done this before and knew it was coming, but it is still tough! I did have the honor of making the instructor cry uncle while he was holding me down though. He finally had to tell me to stop struggling because he couldn't hold me down anymore haha.



The third day we did a drill first thing in the morning, then went full speed finding and removing victims from the training burn building. For some reason the group I was with kept having problems finding the victim. There were some discrepancies between what we had learned before class and what the instructor wanted, plus most of us hadn't worked together before, so it made things a little tough. Good old fashioned bad luck played a part as well. At one point I put my hand next to the victim's leg, then between his legs (on the floor, never laid a hand on him), then on the other side of his other leg. In other words, I was within inches of him and never laid a hand on him. Not my finest moment, but everyone in our group had trouble finding him.



Anyhow, I learned a ton of useful things, and I had fun, even if I now look like I was beat with a baseball bat. My knees and elbows are covered in bruises and blisters, and I can tell I'll have a few more on other parts of my body later, they just haven't surfaced yet. April was pretty shocked when I got home and I took my shirt off. Just one of those days where you get to pay for the honor of being a firefighter!