For years, local fire crews have relied on the Lloydminster Rescue Squad for vehicle rescues and freeing trapped people after crashes.
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Today, each department performs its own extrications.
Legacy Regional Protective Services has trained all three of its stations since 2017. The City of Lloydminster has done this work for over a decade and the County of Vermilion River (CVR) has been performing extrications for years.
To show these skills in action, Legacy Regional firefighters performed a live demo at Lashburn Day on June 14. They removed two “patients” from vehicles using spreaders, cutters and the Jaws of Life.
“Today, we’re just doing it as part of Lashburn Day,” said Regional Fire Chief Dean Peters. “We came down to celebrate the parade and we’ve got some firefighter training going on. We’re going to do a vehicle extrication demonstration for them.”
Event organizer Carmen Landstrom said the team was excited to return.
“They loved doing it last year,” she said. “This year, they wanted to go bigger and better.”
Peters said the event helps firefighters stay sharp and shows people what they do on the job.
“It’s very important. We’ve got a lot of highways; the Highway 16 corridor keeps us very busy. We spend a lot of time keeping our skills honed,” said Peters, noting the tools also help attract new recruits.
“Often, we have people thinking about firefighting,” he said.
“They get to see the great toys we play with … it encourages people
to join.”
County firefighters ready for the worst
CVR Protective Services handles extrications across all eight of its fire districts. That includes crashes on county roads and provincial highways.
“Our fleet includes both light and heavy-rescue trucks,” said Kirk Hughes, CVR Fire Chief and director of protective services. “They carry the tools we need to safely remove a trapped person.”
Some fire engines also carry extra sets of equipment, allowing crews to
handle more than one crash at a time.
“If we face a major incident with more than one entrapment, fire districts help each other,” said Hughes.
“It is not unusual for a motor vehicle collision on a major highway to involve more than one department,” said Hughes. “We have both mutual and automatic aid agreements built into our protocols to allow for the highest level of service during those types of incidents.”
A demonstration of this co-operation occurred last year when Legacy Regional Protective Services, Paradise Valley firefighters and the County of Vermilion River officials attended a fatal plane crash south of Lloydminster.
County crews respond to about 60 to 90 incidents a year. Some involve
animal strikes, others are rollovers or major entrapments.
Training is key and the demonstrations made one thing clear: outside of
Britannia, local departments no longer rely on outside help.
From Vermilion to Lashburn, crews now have the training, tools and
teamwork to take control when seconds count.
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