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Annual DC CAER Drill - DuPont Red Lion Acid Plant
Tuesday, April 7, 2009

On Saturday, March 1rst, 2009 – 18 Active Crew Members participated in the annual DC CAER Drill Exercise hosted by the Dupont Red Lion facility on Governor Lea Road. These members were briefed early the same morning that they would be handling a rescue situation from an elevated platform but were given no specific details on the scenario. At 11:45hrs, the Station was dispatched for a Rescue for an injured worker at the Dupont Facility, 766 Governor Lee Rd. Crews responded on B-15, Rescue 15, & 15-7 with 158-C (Asst Chief Mike Miklus) handling command activities from the command vehicle. Upon arrival, fire department crews were faced with a rescue scenario with an injured person that was elevated on-top of a storage tank that was approximately 45ft in the air. Command briefed fire department personnel on the situation and appointed specific assignments within our use of Incident Command for this scenario: Safety Officers (Jim Watson & Jay Dennis), EMS Group (John Atkinson), Rescue Group (Mick Pollinger). At 12:10hrs, patient contact was completed by members of the Rescue Group via use of the Aerial on 15 -7 (Stairwell on side of storage tank could not be used for access). FD personnel that prepared necessary rigging for a vertical lower of the patient down the side of the storage tank via use of a stokes basket. By 12:55hrs, the patient was lowered to ground level and the patient was turned over to the EMS personnel for evaluation. Participating members gained valuable experience with this training scenario and the fire line officers were able to continue to practice our internal use of Incident Command, personnel accountability tracking and scene control. The New Castle County Office of Emergency Management worked as the liason between fire department & plant personnel with all aspects of the drill scenario.