Photo courtesy of the City of Lloydminster.
Practice makes perfect, and that goes for the latest emergency response exercise involving a fiery mock airplane crash at the Lloydminster Municipal Airport.
All three passenger actors and response crews walked away without a scratch as the intended outcome of a real-life emergency that annual drills strive to achieve.
Personnel from the City of Lloydminster, the Lloydminster Fire Department, RCMP, and provincial partners teamed up for a half-day exercise at the airport last Thursday.
“I think it went really well,” said assistant fire chief Bill Heesing following an initial de-briefing.
“Working with the other teams, there were some gaps, but we will work through those gaps and be better prepared.”
A follow-up report will be compiled in the coming days to assess the response to the training exercise by identifying strengths to be maintained and built upon and potential improvement areas.
“Being simulated with all the parties that were here today is really important for us to have success when the real thing does happen,” said Heesing.
He played the role of incident commander working with the other responders including EMS and airport personnel, and various equipment.
“The main thing is making sure who is in command is clear,” explained Heesing.
“The command function is important to work with all the other agencies to coordinate various deeds that are required on scene such as the extrication of the patients or a fire.”
The exercise involved both a simulated airplane fire and the extrication of several passengers.
Lloydminster Mayor Gerald Aalbers called it an example of what goes on to be prepared to ensure the fire department, EMS, police and city staff work as a team to ensure the situation is resolved quickly and safely.
Aalbers says the crews do mock tabletop exercises on consecutive years and an actual onsite exercise like the one on Thursday every three years to hone their skills.
“It’s challenging because it takes a lot of resources and takes people away from other duties, so every three years is the example they use to put everybody together and debrief,” he said.
Fred Ackerman, Transport Canada liaison with the city, explained why the airport doesn’t have its own dedicated fire station.
“At this point, the airport does not have the amount of passenger movement required to have airport firefighting right on the scene,” said Ackerman.
“So for our scope and size of operation, having our fire department respond from town is just fine.”
Ackerman also explained how the emergency response exercise rolled out.
“First we had props that we lit on fire and staged the wounded people in. From there, we had the fire department respond with their firefighting apparatus and the RCMP with their stuff,” he said.
EMS crews were also on hand with their equipment and the fire department deployed their extrication equipment to rescue the acting passengers.
“We tried to make it as realistic as possible,” said Ackerman.
“Today just demonstrates how these different organizations work together. We have to do these exercises to confirm they do work together. Today was awesome.”
