Activity Report - Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service ...

RESILIENCE TEAM TAKES PART IN
HAZARDOUS MATERIALS TRAINING
EXERCISE
GMFRS welcomed Dutch visitors in May
during a hazardous materials training exercise
at a hospital in Bury.
The exercise took place at Fairfield General
Hospital where A&E staff, consultants, nurses
and support staff were given the knowledge
and practical training to deal with a situation
involving a person who may turn up at the
hospital contaminated with a hazardous
substance.
It was the second time that Pennine Acute
NHS Hospitals Trust, which runs the hospital,
had invited GMFRS’s Resilience team to take
part in a training exercise.
The GMFRS team delivered general
awareness training to emergency services
and hospital staff and detailed how the
Service’s Hazardous Detection Identification
and Monitoring capability may be able to
assist staff dealing with this type of incident.
There was a practical exercise involving the
arrival of a number of contaminated patients
at the A&E department, with staff from the
Resilience team setting up decontamination
facilities and advising hospital staff on the
decontamination process.
Several members of the Dutch CBRN
(chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear)
hospital teams attended to look at how
GMFRS works and the procedures we use,
with the intention of introducing similar
training in Holland.
Garry O’Neill, CBRN Manager for GMFRS,
said: “The training was well received by all,
with hospital and fire service staff gaining a lot
from an increased awareness of the
capabilities, limitations and strengths of each
of our teams.”
GMFRS FIRST IN UK TO TRAIN AT
LANDMARK TOWER
GMFRS scaled new heights during a training
exercise in Lincolnshire in May.
The organisation became the first in the
country to be invited to carry out rope rescue
training with the RAF Aerial Erector School at
Stenigot Tower – a structure almost as high
as Blackpool Tower.
Four members of the Urban Search and
Rescue team – Crew Manager Martin Foran
(Agecroft), Martin Fisher (Training and
Development Centre), John Hughes (Salford)
and Andy Horridge (Gorton) – travelled down
to the site at the end of May for a day-long
session which included Safe Working At
Height training and technical rescue
scenarios.
Stenigot Tower is 360ft high and was
previously used by the RAF as a radar
transmitter in World War II.
It is now used to train new recruits to the
Aerial Erector School and to test their aptitude
for heights – and GMFRS is the first fire and
rescue service to be asked to train there.
The day began with a safety briefing and tour
of the tower, before a sloping tensioned
cableway – similar to a zip-line – was set up
from a 200ft platform to the ground to
simulate how the team would evacuate
someone from the higher levels of the tower.
USAR Rope Supervisor and Crew Manager
Martin Foran said: “The scenario produced
some valuable learning points and the
experience the team gained on a personal
and group level was massive. Each operator
was then lowered to the ground on the
system and a thorough debrief was carried
out.”
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