TEEX Advanced Structural Collapse 3 Course Slideshow

October 6 -10, 2008: The slideshow showcases the various exterior shoring that we were required to construct during this 50-hour course as well as some of the Disaster City® props.

TEEX Advanced Structural Collapse 3 Course

This month, I and 6 other Boston fire fighters attended TEEX’s Advanced Structural Collapse 3 course in College Station, Texas. This course is 50 hours, five days in length, ten hours of instruction each day and challenges the Structural Collapse Technician with advanced exterior shoring problems. The student expands his/her knowledge of wood shores with multiple insertion point shores, shoring of arches and breached openings. It concludes in an intensive and realistic daytime exercise in which the students employ skills learned during the course. The students are provided multiple scenarios requiring a combination of advanced rescue and shoring techniques.

Thanks to our instructor, Mike Walters, for conducting such a great course.

Highline Operation

After packaging and then extricating a victim from the bottom of a vertical 3 stories high 26-inch diameter pipe, the Boston Fire Department Technical Rescue Companies move the victim down to the ground. A Sloping Kootenay Highline System was rigged on the fourth floor of a tower in the rear of Engine 2's and Ladder 19's firehouse to facilitate the extrication.

This was the second day of a 2-day Confined Space Rescue course that our Special Operations Command (SOC) Technical Rescue Group conducted for the Technical Rescue Companies. We did this scenario during the last week of September with 4 of our Technical Rescue Companies. We will run this 2-day class again the last two weeks of the month with the 3 other Technical Rescue Companies plus Cambridge, Massachusetts' Rescue 1.

Wright Rescue Solutions Confined Space and Structural Rope Rescue Course

In September I attended a Confined Space Structural Rope Rescue Course in Panama City, Florida.

This course is designed with the same NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) objectives as the industrial technician course but with emphasis on State USAR (Urban Search & Rescue) team operations commonly associated with the fire service and disaster response. This course is 56 hours and is taught in a 7-day format.

The course was great. We had the added benefit of training at an actual power plant.

Thanks to Richey Wright for running an awesome course and for letting me pick his brain so often over the years.

TEEX Structural Collapse Technician 2 Course

In May, I and 5 other Boston fire fighters attended TEEX's Structural Collapse Technician 2 course in College Station, Texas. There were 48 students attending that were broken up into 8 person rescue squads.

This course is 80 hours, eight days in length, ten hours of instruction each day and is designed to provide students with the knowledge, skills and abilities to perform rescue at structural collapse scenes due to natural disaster or terrorist incidents.

The purpose of the Structural Collapse Technician 2 course is to provide jurisdictions with the same training received by the FEMA US&R Structural Collapse Technicians. This course has significant hands on labs in the Technical Skills Training Area (TSTA) and Disaster City® to ensure that students received the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities to perform exterior shoring and interior shoring operations, breaching, breaking, cutting, and burning operations, and lifting and moving techniques at structural collapse incidents.