Swiftwater Rescue

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SABRE46

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Swiftwater rescue at Charter Oak and Hwy 74. Elderly gentleman stuck up top of his truck... Mr. Harlow was first on scene for Deer Creek...
 

eharlow

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Rescue

Man it went very well. Thanks for the compliments. Couldn't have done it without the help of my guys, EFD and OHP. The OHP boat really came in handy and cut down on some time. We could've gotten to him with the EFD boat but it was going to be a time consuming and more dangerous attempt. Attached are 2 pics I took with my cell phone. One shows the scene during the rescue and the other shows the victims vehicle as of this morning (Friday) about 11am The water had receded enough for the road to open. The victims vehicle is at the left side of the screen. You can see the top of it. DCFD Tanker 1 (5 ton 6x6) is our normal water entry vehicle and is shown at the right. We've done many successful rescues with this unit. I actually went out on the front bumper of this truck when we first arrived to attempt a rescue. We had a bystander who had unsuccessfully tried to make access to the elderly victim and had became trapped on some trees in the high water. I tied off and bailed off into the water and was able to rescue the bystander from the trees and get him back on the truck. I then went back to make an attempt at rescuing the victim from his vehicle. I was able to get up to the truck and get him a life jacket. If you look at today's picture, you can see where I stood when I passed him the life jacket. Right where that mess of tree limbs are piled up is where I was standing with my feet braced against those limbs. They felt like fence posts at the time. After talking with the victim I decided that, due to his age, condition, the water's current and the temperature of the water, I would have him hang tight until the boat got out there. I had a pretty good fight in the undertow trying to get back to our tanker. After that we backed out and waited on the boats to get there. You saw the rest after Chopper 4 showed up. What I found kinda funny after the fact was that SkyNews9 HD never showed it's face. 4 was there the entire time with a ground crew AND the bird.
 

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foster_006

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eharlow said:
Man it went very well. Thanks for the compliments. Couldn't have done it without the help of my guys, EFD and OHP. ..............

............... You saw the rest after Chopper 4 showed up. What I found kinda funny after the fact was that SkyNews9 HD never showed it's face. 4 was there the entire time with a ground crew AND the bird.
BOOOOO CHANNEL 4!!! Stupid choppers! I'm about 90% sure SkyNews9 was in Tulsa most of the day.
 

eharlow

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And just to clarify...I'm actually a Channel 9 fan! I would've much rather talked to Amy McRee than Linda Cavanaugh on the phone...ha ha ha.
 

eharlow

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Medical Info

Yeah...kinda odd but I was glad to get it for EMSA to have.
 

eharlow

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That's actually a 5 ton. It's a little bigger than your "Buster" It's got 2500 gallons on it so it takes a LOT of water to move that thing off the road. Thats why we use it for flood water stuff. Thats about the only type of calls it goes on anymore.

Sadly, this is its last spring storm season. It will go back to Forestry this fall when our brand new tanker comes in. That was part of the agreement to get the grant was to take that vehicle out of service. It will make some department a VERY good truck. That's probably one of the best military trucks I've been around. It runs great and we have really had ZERO problems with it.
 

tiawah466

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My department loves our. Military tanker so much that even if we had a million dollar a month budget we would not get rid of it. We might however have it rebuilt.
 

SABRE46

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eharlow said:
That's actually a 5 ton. It's a little bigger than your "Buster" It's got 2500 gallons on it so it takes a LOT of water to move that thing off the road. Thats why we use it for flood water stuff. Thats about the only type of calls it goes on anymore.

Sadly, this is its last spring storm season. It will go back to Forestry this fall when our brand new tanker comes in. That was part of the agreement to get the grant was to take that vehicle out of service. It will make some department a VERY good truck. That's probably one of the best military trucks I've been around. It runs great and we have really had ZERO problems with it.

Guess if I had looked a little closer, or read the post above a little more carefully, I would have caught that. Sucks that you guys have to get rid of it. What kind of tanker are you guys getting?
 

eharlow

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Tanker

Kenworth T-370/Pierce Contender 2500 gallon with 500gpm pump, hydraulic porta-tank rack, 12" rear air dump, 10" side air dumps on both sides, all with air operated telescoping dump chutes. Loaded with LED lighting also and a Q2B on the front bumper of course.

We will get another 6x6....I've just gotta get a place to put it first. We're trying very HARD to find some land for station 2 in the east part of the district. If I can find the land, we'll be good to go.
 
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