Photos courtesy of Ainsworth Fire Department.

Several Washington County-area rescue agencies participated in ice rescue training at Marr Park this past Sunday.

The Washington Fire Department and Washington County Rescue dive team hosted the exercise, and Training Officer Doug Sanders says they invited area fire departments to take part as they had not been able to train together in the past year because of COVID-19. Sanders mentions this was also the first ice rescue training for some of the departments that had recently acquired rescue suits, “The biggest thing too is we might be short handed one day, and we need the other departments to jump in a suit to help us as well. So that was the other thing, just to get guys comfortable wearing a suit, putting them on.”

Sanders says the suits are very buoyant, and are built so that rescue members don’t get wet or cold from going into the water. He shares what their training included, “So we just practiced pretty much how to talk to a person as we’re coming up to them, to calm them down a little bit, to let them know that we’re here to help them. Just kind of practice how to get in the water with them and how to secure them to get them out safely. And then how to get ourselves out of that situation as well, the ice is breaking on us going out to them.”

Sanders hopes that they can possibly hold another training closer to March when the ice is more fragile, and he thanks Washington County Conservation for letting them open up their pond. The Ainsworth, Brighton, Kalona, Crawfordsville, Riverside, Keota, and Winfield fire departments also participated as well as Washington County Ambulance.