The skills required to perform urban search and rescue are numerous and laborious. When lives are on the line, you want to know exactly what to expect when you arrive on the scene.
This is why Air National Guard and Army National Guard firefighters from across the country came to train at Wisconsin's Regional Emergency All-Climate Training Center -- known as the REACT Center -- during the Patriot North 17 exercise here.
The REACT Center specializes in providing the training required for a safe and successful response to natural and manmade disasters for both military and civilian responders. Although the training at Patriot North 17 will focus solely on urban search and rescue, the center also offers courses in technical rescue; hazardous materials response; chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosives; fire inspection; and fire instruction.
Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Wayne Viands, a firefighter with the Maryland Air National Guard's 175th Wing, along with 20 other Maryland Air National Guard firefighters, are training on several scenarios the REACT Center provides. Viands said the focus of the training is on shoring unstable structures, breaching and breaking concrete, patient contact, and patient transport.
"Every one of these skill sets that are required to perform these functions out here are very perishable," Viands said. "To be able to come up here and exercise these skills on a training venue like this is very hard to come by. … These training scenarios are about as realistic as you're going to get without being in a real-world environment."
The REACT Center is a sprawling 15 acres of concrete rubble mounds, dilapidated buildings, piles of metal and run-down motor vehicles that provide a setting that replicates real urban search-and-rescue challenges. But although realism is important, the training is more than just about cutting through concrete and navigating fallen rubble. The center also promotes safety, and the instructors ensure participants are performing their jobs safely.
Urban search and rescue requires responders to be exceptional problem-solver, because one wrong move could bring a structure down. Skill, smarts, and safety are all significant aspects of a successful rescue, center officials said.
Air Force Master Sgt. Clint Montgomery, assistant chief of the Tennessee Air National Guard's 134th Air Refueling Wing fire department, said he keeps it simple when it comes to planning an effective search-and-rescue effort.
"There's only two criteria to determine if a solution to the problem is viable," he said. "No. 1: Is it safe? And No. 2: Does it work?"