First training day held at Guardian Center

jclark@sunmulti.com

See more training day photos on our Facebook Page

 

When a group of Marines and Georgia Search and Rescue Team

members rounded the corner of the mock interstate, they thought they were

headed to the flooded area of the Guardian Centers to train. What they came

across was another training scenario they had to deal with before they could

reach the flooded homes.

 

There was a pileup of several cars and a school bus

resembling an accident one could possibly see on the interstate. The wreck lay

across two lanes of the mock interstate Thursday morning.

 

“They didn’t know it was there,” said Scott Brantley, the

branch lead for technical rescue at the facility, which specializes in

providing first responders with realistic training for natural and man-made

disasters.

 

Brantley explained that prior to training at the Guardian

Centers, most groups would know the training scenario they were about to face. With

the way the facility is set up, the teams have the possibility of facing

different disasters when they are headed to different areas.

 

Once the team extracted several role players and mannequins

from the wreckage on the mock interstate, they were free to head to the flooded

area of the Guardian Centers, where other GSAR members were working on rescuing

role players from flooded homes.

The flooded area is built to resemble the Ninth Ward of New Orleans

and can be drained or filled with water for multiple training scenarios.

 

“This is a rare occasion where civilian(s) and military can

work together (during) a domestic response event,” said Geoff Burkart, the CEO

of the Guardian Centers, while standing near the flooded area of the Guardian

Centers. “They have to rely on their life experience, previous training and

critical thinking skills.”

 

Burkart, along with others who work at the facility, watched

as two boats maneuvered around the buildings, flooded cars and swing-sets that

were poking out of the surface of the water to rescue role players who were on

the roofs. When each person on the roof was rescued, the teams then started to

search for others who were in the attic.

The rescue team cut holes in the roof of one of the

buildings by using an ax and chainsaw in order to save one of the role players.

In response to seeing his work on the Guardian Centers being

culminated in the first training event, Burkart said, “North America now has an

advanced training center at their disposal that offers more options to test

their (the first responder’s) skill sets.”

HHJ News