05/12/2025
TRAVA RESCUE CHALLENGE 2025 RECAP - DAY 3 & 4
Members of the Hunterdon County Technical Rescue Task Force participated in the Technical Rescue Association of Virginia's Rescue Challenge 2025 this past week. This year, the Rescue Challenge was held in the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia. Twenty-two members from the Flemington-Raritan First Aid and Rescue Squad, South Branch Emergency Services, Inc., Long Valley First Aid Squad, and Hunterdon County, NJ - Department of Public Safety headed south on Sunday morning, arriving in Harrisonburg VA in the late afternoon.
The Rescue Challenge is not a competition - it is a four day training event with each team participating in eight scenarios (AM and PM each day - each 3.5 hours in length) designed to "challenge" the team's capabilities. Twelve teams participated this year - ten from Virginia, and one each from Montgomery County MD, and Hunterdon County NJ.
On Wednesday Day 3, the morning scenario involved a confined space rescue at the Coors Shenandoah Brewery in Elkton VA. An accident had occurred in a fermentation tank, resulting in carbon dioxide creating an IDLH condition inside the 50+ foot tall tank. Two victims were hanging from the steel work on their fall arrest systems. Another victim was hanging inside the tank in their fall arrest harness, with the fourth victim laying at the bottom of the tank. For the exercise, the tank was accessible only from the catwalk above the tank, and their was no lighting in the refrigerated fermentation building.
The team broke into their assigned squads to complete size-up, hazard control (air monitoring, lock-out / tag-out, ventilation and portable lighting). All operations on top of the actual tank required personnel to be "on air". Crews began rigging anchors and rope systems to "pick-off" the two victims hanging outside the tank. Rigging for entry operations was complicated by a small catwalk and the worker's tripod which had flipped over and was partially obstructing the opening, with the worker hanging inside the tank still suspended from it! The two outside the tank were picked off and lowered to the designated landing spot (victims had to land on an "X" on the floor, just to make things a little more complicated!). A confined space entry was then performed to rescue both victims inside the tank. Rescuers on supplied air respirators with Con-Space hardline communications entered the tank and packaged and removed the patients. Breathing air was supplied into the building via the cascade system and high pressure air reel on Heavy Rescue 495 to a breathing air manifold inside the building. Crews then readied their equipment for the afternoon.
The accident investigation is still ongoing, but somehow a large farm combine collided with three vehicles, creating quite a scenario for the afternoon of Day 3. The combine had collided with two cars, with the third car under-riding the rear of the combine. There were victims pinned in two of the three cars, and a victim trapped in grain in the hopper portion of the combine. The team split up to handle three different tasks at the same time.
Once the machine was stabilized, one crew accessed the grain bin on top of the machine. Using a grain shield and grain rescue auger, the patient was quickly freed. But in order to get the patient to the ground, they patient had to land in a designated spot without touching the ground (seems to be a common theme!). A tensioned rope system was set up using a Paratech monopod system on the rear of Heavy Rescue 495 as a highpoint. The patient was carefully slid down the rope system, landing just where they were supposed to.
While this was happening, another crew lifted the combine with HydraFusion struts and stabilized it with additional Paratech rescue struts and cribbing. The under-riding vehicle was then winched from under the combine using skates and the winch on Utility 365. The patient was then extricated from their vehicle. Meanwhile, the third crew used two Grip Hoists to pull one unoccupied vehicle off of the pile in a controlled fashion to gain better access to the car beneath it. The crew lifted the side resting vehicle and a 4000 lb concrete block to free a patient, then used hydraulic rescue tools to tunnel through the vehicle to free four occupants that were pinned inside it. (and they were pinned! - The concrete block was dropped on the cars multiple times during the set-up to simulate crash damage). The team completed the operation with time to spare.
Thursday morning Day 4 involved a collapse rescue operation in an abandoned cold storage building in Waynesboro VA. Two teenagers were reported missing in the 140 foot tall structure. The only windows (and only lighting) were located in the narrow stairwell. As the size-up began, search teams entered the structure to locate the youths. A team member used a drone to recon the exterior of the building. For the purposes of the exercise, any patient located had to be hauled up to the sixth floor. Once patient could be taken down the interior stairs using a stairwell lowering system. The second patient had to be taken to the roof where they would be lowered down the exterior of the building with a stretcher attendant. Once they approached the first floor, the patient and rescuer had to pass through a hole that we had to breach through a vertical concrete slab while hanging from ropes. All equipment had to be raised or carried to the roof before it could be used in the breaching operation.
The victims were located quickly in the bottom of each of the building's two elevator shafts. Using an Arizona Vortex AHD, rope systems were quickly constructed and rescuers lowered to the bottom of the hoistways. The victims were extricated from debris and packaged in SKED stretchers. Both victims were hoisted to the top floor of the building. One patient was carried to the roof, while the second was evacuated from the building using the stairwell lower. Meanwhile, a squad on the roof was creating a twin-tensioned rope system using another Arizona Vortex to negotiate the parapet wall and get over the edge. Personnel operating on the roof beyond a designate safety line had to be on fall protection systems. Multiple anchors were established in the elevator mechanical penthouse and systems extended out onto the roof. The patient and attendant were then lowered down the exterior wall to the roof of the first floor loading docks. Breaching and breaking tools were then raised to the roof from the ground, and then lowered back down to the first floor roof. A rescuer was sent over the edge from the roof and began the breaching operation. As the team was changing out breachers, the time limit expired, ending the exercise. Another thirty minutes and we would have nailed it! But a lot of work was accomplished under difficult conditions.
After a debrief, the team headed to the Augusta County Fire Academy for a trench rescue operation, which we had been warned about earlier in the week that it would be "Shenandoah Valley Style". We arrived to find a huge trench filled with three cars and an overturned school bus!! There were patients pinned in two of the cars, and at least one on the school bus. Once again, the team split up to divide and conquer. The most accessible vehicle was winched from the trench using a Grip Hoist rigged as a 2:1 MA system. That patient was quickly extricated from the vehicle. Meanwhile, one team shored the trench near the front of the bus and then positioned Paratech struts under the bus front end to "stop the crush" of the vehicle beneath it. Another squad stabilized the vehicle at the other end of the trench, positioned a set of panels, and then used hydraulic rescue tools to extricate the heavily pinned patient. A set of panels were positioned on either side of the bus near the rear wheels so that a rescuer could enter the bus and retrieve the patient. This was accomplished quickly. As a matter of fact, the entire operation was completed quickly, ending just as the rain arrived, and allowing time for the team to clean up and load the vehicles for the ride home.
The team arrived back in Flemington around 11:00 PM. Unloading and cleaning of equipment and vehicles was completed around 0100 AM. The team is already looking forward to Rescue Challenge 2026!
Special thanks to 49 Rescue EMT Karen Hoffman for packing and preparing dinner for the entire team each night.
