Rescue services combine for natural disaster training
Three US rescue services combined for major natural disaster training on 18 April at Pitt-Greenville Airport, North Carolina.
Three US rescue services – the North Carolina Helo-Aquatic Rescue Team (HART), Greenville Fire-Rescue and North Carolina Emergency Management – combined for major natural disaster training on 18 April at Pitt-Greenville Airport, North Carolina.
The agencies worked together on air support drills. ‘Victims’ were scattered throughout a local wooded area and crews were tasked with treating and retrieving the victims. The training was developed to recreate some of the conditions that the teams ran into while performing rescues during Hurricane Matthew, which struck the area in 2016.
“The overall mission today is to work with the local emergency management and our local first responders in the community to recreate the events that happened in October 2016,” Greenville Fire-Rescue Captain Mervin Taylor said.
“We're there for that 10 per cent of the time where rescuers are cut off, and we can get the air asset a little quicker. We start with a high-air-recon and work our way down, and work with the local team that's on the ground,” he added.