Firefighters train for water rescue on Assiniboine
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The Assiniboine River at Dinsdale Park in Brandon and Lake Wahtopanah at Rivers have been designated training sites for Manitoba firefighters learning how to rescue people who are in the water and in danger.
Manitoba Emergency Services College, located in Brandon’s east end, is teaching firefighters the six-day surface water rescue technician course.
Instruction for the current cohort of seven firefighters started in the classroom on Monday. By Wednesday, the students were on the water going through different life-saving scenarios, said Ryan MacLellan, one of the instructors.
Firefighters from rural Manitoba are being evaluated by their instructors on their ability to operate an inflatable boat on the Assiniboine River as part of their training through the Manitoba Emergency Services College in Brandon. (Photos by Michele McDougall/The Brandon Sun)
“We have various possibilities like overturned boaters, somebody’s fallen off a bridge, or just falling in the water and unable to rescue themselves. We facilitate that training where we can go in safely and extricate the people safely as well,” MacLellan said.
The course started with classroom instruction about how to evaluate an incident and formulate a water rescue plan.
On Day 2, the firefighters had to prove their ability in the water during evaluations at the Brandon YMCA.
On Lake Wahtopanah, they had to master handling the inflatable boat. But it was the murky Assiniboine with its unpredictable undercurrents that provided the perfect place for the students to hone their new skills, MacLellan said.
“We want them to be adequate boat operators, to know and be aware of the propellors,” he said. “If you make mistakes, they’re fairly unforgiving for people in the water.
“So we spend a lot of time on that and making sure they’re comfortable with the boats and able to get right up to people and recognize the dangers that can come with being on the river.”
The course is offered two or three times a year at no cost to all municipal fire departments in the province.
At the end of the training, students who pass will receive a certificate, which is recognized by all fire departments across North America.
Members of the Brandon Fire and Emergency Services have already taken the course and received their certificates.
“Our province has 100,000 lakes, and that is vast. That is a huge amount of water,” MacLellan said.
“A simple mistake can have massive, massive consequences. And we know that we have to get in those elements that are dangerous.
“There’s the danger of hypothermia and in this river there is zero visibility — we have no idea what’s underneath. So we do this training to make it as safe as possible,” he said.
This week’s students are from Portage la Prairie, Selkirk, Pinawa, the RM of Taché, Lac du Bonnet and the Manitoba Urban Search and Rescue Team.
Thursday morning’s training included testing the students ability to work as a team in their inflatable boats.
A firefighter from rural Manitoba is seeing pulling a buoy from the Assiniboine River near Dinsdale Park on Thursday morning, during the Surface Water Rescue Technician course offered by the Manitoba Emergency Services College in Brandon.
One person directed the operator where to go, and another was tasked with pulling a large orange buoy — which represented a person — from the water.
Once they had mastered the buoy rescue, under the watchful eye of MacLellan and fellow instructor Mike Speiss, the students took turns getting in the water and being rescued themselves.
Each was wearing an immersion suit, which is buoyant and provided warmth.
“When we’re doing our lifts out, we teach them to go under the armpits and not grab the person’s clothing, which could rip or tear off completely,” MacLellan said.
“In a real event, there’s a very good chance you’ll be grabbing a boater who is not wearing a T shirt or anything like that, so we want our students to be able to grab them safely.”
Instruction will continue in the Assiniboine River and on its banks today and Saturday. On Sunday, they’ll go through their examinations.
MacLellan said he was confident in the life-saving skills of the students, but he had advice for people who enjoy being on the water — whether swimming or on a boat, standup paddle board, kayak or canoe.
“The main thing is, wear your personal flotation device,” he said.
“For whatever reason, if you get tossed into the water, it greatly increases your ability to be rescued if you’re at the surface.”
» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com
» enviromichele.bsky.social