Garden City Park Fire Department Skates on Thin Ice

"You train for everything in the hopes you don't have to do it," said Garden City Park Fire Department Chief William Rudnick of why 33 members of his department, including himself, spent 18 hours of their weekend doing ice-water rescue training.

Rudnick noted that there are nine bodies of water in the area the department covers between sumps, ponds and small lakes. Some members of the department were previously trained in this type of rescue; a company called Lifeguard Systems was brought in to conduct the course.

The training included spending nine hours on Saturday in a classroom preparing to test out what these firefighters learned on Sunday for another nine hours on the ice and in the water.

Because the water exerts pressure on the special suit that the firefighters were wearing during the outdoor portion of the training and could raise their blood pressure and heart rate, the firefighters' vitals were taken before doing the training.

Rudnick noted that the instructors of the course said during the classroom portion that "no ice is safe ice," meaning that people should not skate or walk on frozen bodies of water. But should someone find themselves falling through the ice and in need of help, Second Assistant Chief Robert Mirabile advises staying calm and not moving around too much because that takes away some of the heat coming off of your body.  He added that if the ice starts to crack and you want to get away, lie on your belly to better distribute your weight and try to roll away.

This is the third time the department has had this kind of organized training, Rudnick said; this weekend's training was done at Herricks Pond. He added that refresher courses are supposed to be every two years or so to stay at the technician level.

"We've assembled a competent group of people able to serve this community and the neighboring area," Rudnick said.