Crime & Safety

WATCH: High-Risk Rescue After Car Over Bridge (Simulation)

Fire and rescue workers show their stuff in a practice rescue in a car-off-a-bridge scenario.

Rescue crews strapped into climbing gear and repelled more than 100 feet off a bridge in Columbia for an exercise in high-risk rescue.

As cars whizzed by on Route 32 in Columbia, the special operations unit of the Howard County Department of Fire and Rescue Services (HCDFRS) hit the ground and secured a patient – actually, a member of the team, posed as a patient – into a stretcher that was attached to a pulley system. 

Rescue crews drew the patient and the team back up to Route 32, where emergency vehicles were waiting.

"This is critical because these types of incidents are what we determine to be very high-risk, very low-frequency in nature," said Gordon Wallace, a spokesman for the HCDFRS.

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"The most realistic training we can get our members for this type of incident is going to be critical for them to be able to perform when it actually does happen," Wallace told Patch.

The rescue members train for this situation in smaller and more controlled areas, but allowing them to go through the motions on an actual roadway makes them even more prepared, according to Wallace.

"Due to the complexity of this drill, this will be the first time in three years that HCDFRS has conducted one involving the lowering of personnel and 'mock' patients over a bridge," department officials said in a statement.

Special operations personnel conduct approximately 90 rescues per year around the county, and four of those in 2011 were technical rope rescues, according to the county fire and rescue service.


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