What’s a Heavy Rescue anyway?

[confire]

We are expecting delivery on our new “Heavy” Rescue truck in January and in all probability will sell the old rescue.
Which brings me to the question what constitutes a heavy rescue vehicle? Is it the size of the truck, the equipment carried or both?

If we sale the old the old truck should it be classified as a medium or heavy rescue?

Here’s a brief description of the truck and highlights of some of the equipment carried.
A small five man on a 4 door commercial cassis, 15 foot box, 250 GPM PTO pump/250 tank, 8500 watts of lighting power by a diesel generator. The generator is mounted high and behind the pump and takes up no usable storage space.
Some of the larger equipment carried. 1 gas & 1 electric Holmatro power units, 1 large & 1 medium spreader, 3 rams large, medium and small, 1 combo spreader/cutter, 1 brake cutter. Hurst gas power unit with large spreader and large cutter.
8 high pressure air bags with one being 36” x 36” , large air chisel, Port-a-power, impact wrench, 2- come-a-longs, tool box, 2 portable lights, 3 tri-pod light, 2 Portable & 4 fixed manual rewind cord reels.
6- 8 foot wood 4X4’s, 8 cartons wood cribbing, 16 foot ladder, rope bags & body harness, 2 SCBA’s, 5 extra tanks, 30 traffic cones.
BLS EMS equipment, 3 back boards, stokes baskets. Many more items form 2-1/3/4 pre-connects to hand tools.

We don’t carry anything in the way of technical rescue equipment. We have only light manufacturing, no tall building, no high-angle rescue opportunities. The possible confine space, trench rescue always exists. Vehicle extrications and small haz-mat incidents is what this truck was equipped for.

So what do you think? Do we call this a medium or heavy rescue?

The new rescue will be on a custom chassis with a 1000 GPM PTO pump, a 20 foot box and is as tall as a house

Thanks

[FyredUp]

Medium rescue is what you have. Both in size and in equipment.

Most heavy rescues carry an assortment of equipment similar to what you have, but go even farther in having much more equipment and more specialized equipment.

Now I am sure others will have there opinion and I can't wait to see where this goes!!

FyredUp

[HFRH28]

The size (GVW, usable space, ammount of equip) of the truck determines what size rescue it is.

Around here, your rating depends on your equipment, by a preset list from the state. Light requires no power units, medium and heavy require two. Along with that list is a load of hand tools, rope, rappeling gear, cribbing, pickets, porta-powers, ladders, SCBAs, gear, and so on. Just for example, we are rated as Medium Level rescue. We run a Medium duty rescue, which is not even enough to carry all the medium equipment, so the "rating" of the rescue may not match your level of extrication ability. We have to spread out our rescue related items over three trucks, just to have it all on a truck, not counting SCBA, gear, ladders and so on; just hand tools, rope, generators, porta-powers, cribbing and water rescue items.

Hopefully all this blabbing made some sense to you.

[jfTL41]

800 pounder in a cargo net from the 4th floor apartment to the hospital, that is a heavy rescue!

[Rescue101]

JF,Is that stick or tower work? Hehe T.C.

[jfTL41]

Rescues and squads carry the cargo nets, and everybody lifts!

[BC79er_OLDDELETE]

Pennsylvania defined the different levels of rescue and the equipment needed for each. Basically Advanced is Heavy, Operations is Medium, First Response is Light. The manual is took big to attach here so I stuck it over here:

http://www.firegraphics.org/download...MANUAL2000.zip

It's from 2000 but still pretty applicable.

jf: I don't know about the cargo net. 800lbs, 4 stories? I'm thinking that's a shop vac job.

[herbroberson]

In my state (NC) you can see what is needed to be heavy rescue (or medium or light) by going to the State rescue Association's web site at www.NCAREMS.org. Click on rescue standards on the right hand side of the screen.

[shvfr4]

Our department has a 1997 E-ONE Heavy Rescue and it is one big truck! We carry anything you could ever imagine in that thing. If you request Rescue truck Literature...that's our truck on the cover (unless they changed it in the last couple months.) I could go on for hours about the stuff we have on that truck, but theres no point because I would definitely miss something. From medical, to cribbing, to haz-mat, to tents and chairs, to a boat...we got it all!

http://home.earthlink.net/~newtownhd...teer/id12.html

[OFDfireman101]

This is a Heavy Rescue

[confire]

Shvfr4, that’s a sharp truck and it certainly sounds like a kick butt piece of equipment.

This is a Heavy Rescue

My OFDfireman101 you do have a big one

[shvfr4]

Perfect example! Today we had an RIT drill and 1/2 way through we had an MVA w/ injuries. Our heavy rescue rolled with 12 guys and had enough equipment to treat 5 patients before the ambulance even got there. All we needed was the stretcher!