Water rescue personnel train at Moraine State Park
MUDDY CREEK TWP — First responders stood on about four-feet of ice that covered Lake Arthur at Moraine State Park Saturday, Feb. 22, but the officers undergoing water rescue training that day suspected it was the thickest the ice would get this winter.
Mark Adomaitis, chief of Butler County Water Rescue Team 300, said the training could not have come at a better time, because ice fishers can find themselves in an emergency if they don’t yield to the temperature and watch their step.
“Those conditions change very rapidly, that's when we're going to be needed,” Adomaitis said. “No ice is safe ice, because there's so many different factors. Just another 100 feet, there was open water (with) moving water.”
About 50 first responders from 11 organizations around Western Pennsylvania attended the ice rescue training session at the state park, which Adomaitis led. The first responders were trained on how to keep themselves safe on frozen bodies of water and how to properly respond to situations where people are in water emergencies.
Even though the ice was thick on the sub-20-degree morning, every person participating in the training was tethered to the shore, so no one was at risk of a true emergency. Adomaitis explained that teaching the responders personal safety is integral to having successful water rescues for other individuals.
“First thing we did was went out and cut a hole in the ice. Every one of our guys has to be tethered to shore, so if they fall through, we have control to pull them back out,” Adomaitis said. “We show them how to slip into the water and how to rescue. They have to use their arms and their legs and get out of that water, back up on ice and roll away from the hole.”
Participants then practiced rescuing a training dummy, as well as one another, through exercises where they had to react appropriately to a simulated situation. Responders threw a life raft to a person on the ice — which had to be precise so they could reel them in as fast as possible — and practiced using a rescue hook to pull a dummy out of the water.
Nico Soler, who commands the Butler County Tactical Emergency Medical Services Unit, also attended the training, as a way to connect with water rescue responders and coordinate their teamwork for real-life situations that could arise.
“For us this is a chance to get our equipment out, stuff running … develop the relationships and get an understanding of what they go through and how we can jump in and help,” Soler said.
Rob McLafferty, coordinator for the Butler County 911 center, attended the training as well, and said county dispatch officers also are trained to walk a caller through a response to a water rescue emergency while they wait for responders to arrive.
“Wait for the trained rescuers,” McLafferty said. “911 is going to help you through everything, they will get the right resources out here.”
McLafferty also said that even though a person’s first reaction to a water emergency might be to try to rescue a person themselves, they should wait for professionals, who are equipped with appropriate clothing and equipment for those situations.
“We want to make sure we don’t have a second injury out there,” McLafferty said.
Adomaitis said the Butler County water rescue team has such training every quarter so members can stay up to date with the seasons on best water rescue practices. He said the county team has about 25 active members, who each went through initial training to get on the call list for water rescue emergencies. According to Adomaitis, the team could always use more volunteers.
“The starting point is the three-hour awareness class, and after that, they move into a 16-hour operations class,” Adomaitis said. “That is all classroom, and then we go to McConnells Mill and do our training the second day.”
Although dozens of tents could be seen camped out on the frozen lake from the 528 Bridge, Adomaitis said no one should be too comfortable when ice fishing. He recommended anyone who goes on a frozen body of water practice caution and bring equipment to help them in case of an emergency.
“People are going to ice fish, but if you fall in, have a PFD (personal flotation device) on and have a whistle,” Adomaitis said. “Stay off the ice because it's changing so rapidly close to shore.”
