For the past few days, firefighters with Great Falls Fire Rescue have been training at their training center off 9th Street South.
“We are doing a mayday training. Something goes wrong inside of the building, and they need to rescue one of their own,” said Shane Klippenes, a training officer with Great Falls Fire Rescue.
Before the training started, Klippenes met with the firefighters. They went over how to call out a mayday and what their different jobs are when a mayday comes through.
“It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, we need to perform at our best to be able to help other people and our own,” Klippenes said.
Normal mayday training would be inside a building, but Klippenes decided to make this mayday go around a little different.
“We were deployed to a structure fire. While crews are working, in comes a motor vehicle, disrupts the whole thing. It plows into the scene and takes out a couple firefighters,” said Nate Schmidt, Great Falls firefighter lieutenant.
Klippenes decided to change up this training because it is now more common for freighters to be struck by a vehicle while responding to an emergency.
“It is important to train so our people are disciplined and maintain their tactical directives until they are told something different,” Klippenes said.
These exercises are not only to learn new techniques and methods but also to build camaraderie between these firefighters.
“We have 60 incredible guys on this department. It is fun to get together and work hard and learn from each other.”
