Powder River Examiner -

By PR County Fire Chief Raymond Ragsdale

On the evening of March 10th, Broadus Volunteer Fire Department hosted a well attended training at the Community Center on Traffic Incident Management. The management system was developed by emergency responders and was inspired by the growing number of law enforcement, EMS, Fire Fighters and Tow Truck Drivers that are injured or killed while on traffic incidents nationwide.

Jerry Prete and Troy Peterson from the Montana State Fire Training School along with Matt Zellers from Montana Highway Patrol presented the training, both classroom and then outside for a hands-on activity consisting of placement of fire department apparatus, cones and lights in a way to both stop traffic and if possible direct them to the other lane when we are able to keep traffic moving.

When the fire department is called to assist with traffic, our first responsibility is to protect all responders and civilians involved in the incident from the oncoming traffic from both directions. After we have a handle on the traffic we can assist EMS with whatever they need us to do, if we have enough fire personnel, some can do traffic while the others assist in extrication and removal of whoever is involved in the incident with the specialized equipment we carry in our rescue vehicles.

With the high volume of traffic on our highways, now it has become increasingly dangerous for responders. The designers of this system have come up with the 5 D’s, describing the type of drivers that can become involved in an incident within an incident: Distracted; Drowsy; Drunk; Drugs; and just plain Dumb. All of these can ignore all of the flashing lights that are ahead and plow into a scene; I can’t tell you the number of times that people have their phones out as they drive by filming what is going on, not paying attention to what is ahead of them like a firefighter with a sign.

Our last objective, after those involved in the crash have been removed and the traffic lanes have been cleared or at least cleared out of the way, is to get traffic moving as soon as possible. The longer that traffic is held up gives more opportunity for someone in the D category to cause another problem.

If you come upon an accident scene and call 911, you should identify who you are and the exact location of the incident, the number and type of incidents, and if possible, the number of persons involved. Other pertinent information would be how many lanes are blocked, the hazards, bad visibility, location of the wreck such as down over a hill with limited visibility. This will let first responders know initially what man power and equipment is needed.

Attendees included fire fighters from Ashland, St. Labre, Carter and Powder River County, Sheriff’s Departments from Powder River and Carter County, Ambulance personnel from Powder River, Carter, and Rosebud and Gibb’s Towing from Ashland and Glendive and Plains Towing out of Belle Fourche. What made this training so important was the fact that we can be on an incident with everyone that attended and can all be on the same page when we respond to an incident of this nature.

A new non-profit website has started named Move Over Montana that is well worth looking at and with a lot of valuable information on it with the proceeds going to emergency services personnel who have been injured or the families of personnel that have been killed in the line of duty.

We would like to thank the State Fire Training School along with Montana Highway Patrol for providing this most important training in our community.

On another note, we would like to remind everyone that if you are going to burn please let dispatch know at 436-2333 so your neighbors don’t report it as a fire.