After 21+ years as a municipal firefighter with Albuquerque Fire Rescue, Chris Carlsen is stepping into a new role as Roco Rescue’s Director of Training. He brings to the role a background that includes extensive experience as an instructor, as a developer of curricula, and as a technical rescue program manager.
By Brad Warr, Chief Instructor Ask any Roco instructor what they would prioritize if they were in charge of training for an industrial rescue team, and you’ll hear Rescue Challenge consistently mentioned. After working with a lot of creative minds to plan the 2019 Roco Rescue Challenge, and serving as an evaluator, I am a...
Pat Furr (Roco Rescue): Good morning Andy and thanks so much for joining us today.
I hear it very often from students, attendees at safety shows, and during site needs assessments. It is usually something the safety representative says, but more and more, I hear it from the employees, and it goes something like this: “Our management wants us to be safe, but when it comes time to sign the...
By Chris Carlsen, Albuquerque Fire Department Having worked and been an instructor in the rescue field, I am often asked, “what are some advanced rescue techniques in confined spaces?” My response is always, “It depends where you think you are as a team, because advanced can mean many different things.”
There are three generally accepted types of confined space rescue: self-rescue, non-entry retrieval, and entry rescue. Just as with the hierarchy of hazard mitigation, confined space rescue should be approached with an ascending hierarchy in mind.
“My drive is to help us get better.” Growing up in a small northern Louisiana town, Chad Roberson admits he was “around the fire service a lot.” His father was a volunteer firefighter and from a young age, Chad understood what a life of service looked like. From age 16, Chad served as a volunteer...
by Brad Warr, Chief Instructor The day before 40-year-old Phoenix firefighter Brett Tarver got separated from his crew and ran out of air at the Southwest Supermarket fire, the fire service felt confident in its ability to rescue a downed firefighter. That all changed when Tarver was found unresponsive thirty minutes after his mayday was...
Tim Robson’s involvement with trench rescue started in 1994 when his technical rescue team from the Albuquerque Fire Department responded to what the dispatcher called a trench event. “When we arrived on the scene, no one was there other than a police officer and a grandmother,” Tim recalls. “She couldn’t find her grandson.”
