Training Session Becomes Live Rescue In Tennessee

United States (Tennessee) - It was a final exam beyond anything the instructors could have dreamed up. Firefighters from Virginia Beach and Chesapeake were in Memphis, Tenn., on Saturday, teaching their last lesson in a five-week course for Memphis-area firefighters on technical rescues -- rescues from tricky spaces or tight situations.

They were wrapping up their final week -- focused on swift-water rescues, as it turns out -- when the call came: A group of firefighters was trapped. Their engine, caught in the heavy flooding that swept through Tennessee that day, had rolled into a ditch and the local fire departments had run out of people to handle calls. Could they -- and their class -- possibly lend a hand?

"It's a terrible way to have a final scenario, but it certainly was a good one," said Macky Tabor, who retired from the Virginia Beach Fire Department last month.

The storms that hit Tennessee and northern Mississippi turned roads and highways into rivers, and brought tornadoes along with flash flooding. Seven were killed in Tennessee and at least three are missing after being swept away by flood waters. Four were killed in northern Mississippi.

In the Memphis area, meteorologists said a levee had been breached along a river to the north of the city, and in some areas, 4 to 5 feet of water had flooded hundreds of homes.

Tabor was part of a group of instructors who had traveled to Tennessee with Spec.Rescue International, a Virginia Beach-based company that provides technical rescue training.

After that first call, the group was asked to assist another group of firefighters, who were trapped on a bridge. From there, they were called to help rescue residents at a nearby naval base. Tabor estimated they helped with 80 to 90 rescues that day.

Along the way, they also got to impart the real-life value of some of those in-class lessons, said Virginia Beach fire Capt. Paul Gleaton. Like, make sure to always hold on to your boat when walking through the flood waters.

"We were walking in knee deep water, next thing I know, I'm in over my head," he said. "That's why you hold onto the boat."

Tabor said it's not the first time he's been asked to help with actual rescue work while teaching a class. Technical rescues require unusual skills that aren't always in high supply. Usually they try to let the local departments handle the rescue and just provide extra assistance, he said -- but this Saturday was out of the ordinary.

"It was just refreshing that all this training was put to good use," Gleaton said.

Written by The Virginian-Pilot