RAPID INTERVENTION TEAM TRAINING
(PHOTOS BELOW)

The Wildwood Crest Fire Department recently hosted an intense Rapid Intervention Team (R.I.T.) Training Course, which was presented by Michael Robertson, a nationally recognized R.I.T. training expert.

Rapid Intervention Teams are specially trained crews of firefighters who are assigned to rescue other firefighters who have become injured, trapped or disoriented.

The course concentrated on techniques used to effect the quick removal of injured or unconscious firefighters, a task which can be extremely difficult due to the weight of a fully-outfitted firefighter, who also may be pinned under debris, and who may be dangerously low on breathing air in his/her self-contained breathing apparatus.

The sixteen-hour course was attended by members of the Wildwood Crest, Wildwood, and West Wildwood Fire Departments, and concluded on Sunday, June 30, 2002, with an all-day series of rescue evolutions at the Cape May County Fire Training Academy in Cape May Court House, NJ.

Michael Robertson is a fire service instructor at the Burlington County (NJ) Fire School and a career Firefighter-EMT with the Evesham (NJ) Fire Department. Other instructors included George Sanders and Tony Burnett, both highly qualified instructors from the Burlington County Fire School.

Below are photos from the June 30 exercises.