BATAVIA, Ohio — Firefighters and rescue crews from four Clermont County departments spent two days this week training together on rope rescue systems designed to pull injured people out of ravines and other hard-to-reach terrain.
Personnel from Stonelick Township Fire Department, Jackson Township Fire and Rescue, Williamsburg Township Emergency Services and Wayne Township Fire and Rescue met on property owned by Clermont Northeastern Local Schools to review the rope rescue equipment used by all four departments, Stonelick Township Fire Department said in a Facebook post.
Crews practiced deploying the rope systems to extricate a patient secured in a Stokes basket, a rigid, wire-frame litter used to carry an injured person over uneven ground where a wheeled stretcher can’t go. Using the skills covered in the training, crews set up a 3:1 mechanical hauling system — a pulley arrangement that lets a small team haul roughly three times the weight they could lift on their own — to bring a patient in a Stokes basket up out of a ravine.
The department said in its post that calls requiring this kind of technical rope rescue are rare for any one of the four departments on its own, which is part of why the joint training mattered: it gave crews from separate townships a chance to practice on the same equipment and procedures before they’re called to work together on an actual rescue.
Stonelick Township Fire Department, the training’s host, operates out of two stations — its headquarters on U.S. 50 in Batavia and a second station on Stonelick Williams Corner Road — and traces its roots to the former Owensville Fire Department before it was reorganized as a township department in 2006. Jackson Township Fire and Rescue, based in Williamsburg, has served that community since it was founded in 1987. Williamsburg Township Emergency Services has provided fire and EMS coverage to the township since 1935. Wayne Township Fire and Rescue, headquartered in Newtonsville, operates two stations covering the township’s rural roads.
The department also thanked Clermont Northeastern Local Schools for allowing crews to use district property for the exercise. The district, based in Batavia with an elementary school in Owensville, serves families across the northeastern part of Clermont County.
The information contained in this story was obtained from the Stonelick Township Fire Department.