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 By Robert O'Rourk The Keyspan Holbrook natural gas facility is dominated by the storage tank holding liquid natural gas in a tank over 115 feet high. The Brookhaven Technical Rescue Task Force vehicles parked nearby and rescuers with equipment ascended to the work platform at the top of the tank to effect a rescue of a worker suffering a heart attack. |
 By Robert O'Rourk At the start of the effort, members certified for high angle rescue work donned their equipment and sorted out the gear they would need to effect a rescue from a high tank. |
 By Robert O'Rourk Brian Infanzon went over the side to accompany the stretcher in its decent. He is roped to the stretcher and it is lowered via another rope by personnel out of view of the camera. The man in the white helmet is a Keyspan employee observer. This photo is of the crutial point of getting the stretcher over the edge of the tank. |
 By Robert O'Rourk The idea of the rescuer going down with the stretcher is to stablize the stretcher while literally walking down the structure, backwards. |
 By Robert O'Rourk The las 15 feet seemed to be the easiest as several team members guided the ropes. |
By ROBERT O'ROURK
LONG ISLAND, NY - The Brookhaven Technical Rescue Task Force joined the Holbrook Fire Department at the Keyspan Natural Gas facility located in the Holbrook Fire District to hold a practice rescue on a sunny Sunday morning.
The Keyspan facility is dominated by a huge natural gas storage tank which towers some 115 feet high just south of the Long Island Expressway near exit 62. Holbrook has not worked with the BTRTF yet, so this was an opportunity to see them work and to try out the necessary command coordination vital to any rescue effort.
The scenario on the main storage tank was staged as a situation in which a worker has a heart problem while working on the access structure at the top of the tank. The rescue team with members from Port Jefferson, Setauket, Mt Sinai and Seldon were brought into the facility and parked at the West side of the tank. Members accessed the tank via the work stairway that wraps upward around a quarter of the tank. A stretcher was carried to the top along with roping and gear to facilitate a lowering of the patient via a rapel effort.
The exercise also permitted the rescue members to look over the tank layout and determine for future efforts what was the best manner to lower a patient from the top should it ever be necessary. Barring any change to the tank’s layout, the point selected was next to the work platform on the south side of the tank. After the patient, a mannequin, was prepped for the decent and packaged into the stretcher, the effort to lower the patient and a fire fighter commenced.
Mt Sinai’s Brian Infanzon was the selected rescuer to go over the side and accompany the stretcher to the ground. He was lowered first to just over theside and the stretcher followed. Infanzon’s job is to stabilize the stretcher and to walk it down the side of the structure. The effort was executed with only one minor problem as the stretcher was being stabilized after going over the side.
During the exercise, Keyspan personnel were in close proximity to help with any issues encountered with the facility and to see first hand how a rescue might be executed. The entire exercise was deemed a success at it’s conclusion with the Holbrook Fire Department gaining a first hand understanding of working with the BTRTF.