My Experience with Swing-Stage Scaffolding I will never forget Friday, March 4, 2011. It was a typical New York day, about 40 to 45°F, with the wind about 10 to 15 miles an hour. I was off the day tour and doing stuff around the house before my scheduled night tour, which I would then be working the Saturday day tour. Around 2:30 p.m., I packed my bag for work and headed for the firehouse, in the city of Yonkers, NY. I always leave early for two reasons. First, living on Long Island, there is always traffic, and the one thing I hate most is sitting in traffic and being late for work.
The second reason I leave early is to allow anyone who needs to leave early or is getting detailed to work at another firehouse to leave once I arrive. Anyways, I lucked out and there was not much traffic on the roads, so I arrived around 3:45 p.m. I walked into the firehouse, poured myself a cup of coffee, and told the crew over the public address speaker that if anyone had to go, I was in and could ride for them. Wouldn''t you know it: on this day I had no takers. That didn''t matter to me, because I was just happy that I was already at the firehouse and had not had to fight much traffic to get there. I sat at the table with a few other firefighters, just talking about the day, when the tones hit for a high-angle rope rescue. It was between 4:30 and 4:45 p.
m. now, and since this type of emergency might extend into the night tour, which starts at 6:00 p.m., I repeated my offer to see if anyone from the day tour wanted to leave. Still no takers; I told them that if they needed anyone else along, I was available. Our firehouse was a unique four-story building housing Rescue 1, Tower Ladder 71, the mask service unit, and administration. The first two floors were dedicated to the fire companies. The third floor was for administration, with offices for deputy chiefs and business departments.
The fourth floor was for training, with classrooms and a gymnasium. A great place to work, with wonderful officers and firefighters! Once the units arrived on scene, they informed dispatch of a scaffolding collapse, with two individuals hanging on harnesses from the 12th floor. Within 30 seconds of receiving the size-up report, an officer from upstairs came into the kitchen and said, "Grab your gear. The chief wants you at the scene." I was not sure yet what my role at the scene would be, but I was ready to do whatever they wanted to make sure that everyone there--firefighters and patients--would be safe and eventually tell their kids about this day. This was not an everyday emergency for us. It was a once-in-a-career situation. As we arrived on scene, I could see five news helicopters hovering over the building, trying to get the best shot from the front.
With us being so close to New York City, bordering the Bronx, you might assume that most of the news stories would happen in the City--not this day. There was absolutely nothing going on in the news on this day except for our rescue. This attention could be great for our department, if everything were to go as planned and we performed to the best of our abilities--or it could turn out to be a horrible day if not. I got out of the chief''s car and reported to the battalion chief, who was on the ground in front of the building. I could see that the workers'' swing-stage scaffolding had collapsed and both workers were hanging from their harnesses. The worker on the top of the scaffold had one foot on the scaffold and the other on the building, though he seemed to be in good shape without evidence of harness-suspension trauma. However, the second worker, who was about 10 ft under the first worker, was in a more serious situation. He was totally suspended by his harness and lifeline and was not moving much, which would likely progress to suspension trauma if this worker was not rescued soon.
The battalion chief also advised me that they had already tried ladders to reach the two individuals, but they were out of range. This would have to be a rope rescue from the top of the roof. This building, a 29-story senior-living high rise, had an elevator shaft at its center and stairwells at each end. Because each stairwell shaft extended one floor above the roofline, that made the building effectively 30 stories high. In addition, the stairwells protruded about 15 ft from the center of the building and were about 15 ft long. There were no windows, and the only access points were a door at the bottom (ground floor) and a door on top (roof level). As mentioned in chapter 3, there was a sidewalk shed to protect the ground floor, flush with the entire first floor of the building. The workers were cleaning and painting the exterior of the stairwell shaft, hence the swing-stage scaffold.
Photographs of the building with and without the workers'' scaffold are seen in figure 6-1 and figure 6-2, respectively. For a little background on myself and rope rescue, when I came out of the fire academy as a probationary firefighter, I was assigned to E-303--a senior company with great firefighters. I learned the job from these men, and they led me in the right direction as a firefighter. I was always tying my knots with my short rope in the firehouse, and senior firefighters would tell me, "Hey, kid, you are never going to use that here. Stop tying those knots." Despite this advice, being a probationary firefighter who wanted to do and know everything possible in the fire service, I did not stop tying those knots. In fact, I got more involved in rope rescue and aspired to be assigned to heavy rescue eventually. I took all the classes that I could on rope, trench, confined space, and collapse.
I wanted to do as Lieutenant Mike Melillo was doing, teaching rope rescue classes around the country while working standby for a private company. Mike introduced me to Richard Wright, who had started his own company and was looking for instructors. (Mike and Richey used to work for the same company way back and have been working together for years.) In early 2001, I went to Florida, where Richey is based, and took a 2-week class with him. I can honestly say that everything I learned from my previous classes was summed up in the first 2 days, with the remaining 8 class days presenting material that was new to me. I loved every aspect of this class. Long story short: Richey hired me to teach, but first I had to do an internship and meet several other requirements to become an assistant instructor for him. I still teach for Wright Rescue Solutions, Inc.
today in my off time and have learned more than I ever could have imagined when I started my firefighting career in 2000. Jump back to March 4, 2011, where I am at the scene of a swing-stage scaffold incident with workers hanging on their harnesses and lifelines. The battalion chief just gave me the size-up and told me to go to the roof. Once on the roof, I reported to the chief of operations and asked what he needed. He said we had to set up a rope system and go over the side to pick the workers off. The company who originally received this call had already started rigging the main line and belay line. I had some of them do a safety check and others grab a ladder to access the roof of the stairwell, since it extended one floor above the roofline. This would be our point of departure.
The chief of operations told me that I was going to go over. I thought to myself, oh boy, I better not screw this up with everyone watching, thanks to a slow news day in New York City. I put on my harness and was lowered to the victims. We had personnel take the window out to the far right of the victims, so that they could inform them of what was going to happen. As the roof crew lowered me down to the scaffolding, I stopped at the first victim and indicated that I was going to come back for him after I took his partner down. My immediate concern was for the victim below, because he was only supported by his lifeline and harness and wasn''t moving. I got down to the second victim and picked him off (as described in chapter 3), brought him to the sidewalk shed, handed him off to another company, and went back up to the roof to perform the second pick-off. Once both victims were down, they were taken to the hospital where they were treated for mild hypothermia, in addition to a few cuts and bruises.