CHIEF BILL XIKIS
Selden FD & BTRTF Manager

BROOKHAVEN, NY - The Brookhaven Technical Rescue Task Force held a Trench Rescue drill on April 30, 2006. The Task Force teams met at the Selden Fire Department Headquarters as the Staging area. Since the drill was taking place at the Selden Fire Department training facility they acted as the Department who had the incident and requested the BTRTF to respond. The staging officer sent out Departments in an order from closest to more distant. Team Leader Joey DiBernardo also responded from staging. Team member and Selden Fire Heavy Rescue Lieutenant Dave Panebianco was the incident commander.

The drill not only simulated a response but also tested the ability of the Task Force to split up and handle more than one rescue at one incident location. Two trenches were involved and the Task Force was split into Division 1 and Division 2. The members went to work and extricated 2 workers who were involved in a trench collapse and had concrete construction material fall in on top of them. It took approximately 2 hours to extricate both workers.

The Brookhaven Technical Rescue Task force has been operating since 1995 and currently is made up of ten fire rescue agencies. Setauket Fire, Centereach Fire, Selden Fire, Port Jefferson Fire, Mount Sinai Fire, Port Jefferson Volunteer Ambulance, Hagerman Fire, Ronkonkoma Fire, SUNY Stonybrook Fire Marshals, and Miller Place Fire.

They are available to respond through FRES and at the request of the incident commander. They will operate as a sector in your incident command structure and are not there to “take over” YOUR scene. They are a “tool” in the Chiefs toolbox. For more information please visit the website at www.longislandrescue.com and scroll down to the lower left of the page and click.

Special Thanks to Tom Gavin from Paratech and Bosch for allowing the Task Force the use of his trailer and equipment.