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The following is an account of an actual rescue conducted by the Fishers Fire Department:     A 20 year old DWP worker entered the 8’ manhole to direct a powered clean out “snake” in an 8” sewer drain. There were 2 other drains; he was going to feed it into the correct pipe. While on the plastic ladder steps (set in the structure walls), a step broke and he fell. He injured his shoulders (one was separated) and was unable to perform self rescue. He was conscious during the entire incident. The rescuer was Firefighter/Medic Mike Williams, a first year TRT member, and 7 years on the job. The victim was packaged in an LSP half-back and raised out by the tripod, and transported to Methodist. We had to be careful on how we rigged the LSP to avoid further injury to his shoulders when we raised him out. A cordless saw-zall was used to remove the remaining steps to gain space when raising the victim. Our tower ladder was staged back with 2 separate raise/lower systems attached to the bucket. This was our plan B in the event the tri-pod was not tall enough to remove the victim. Plan A (tri-pod) worked fine. Carmel Fire Department’s station 45 (their tactical station) was assigned rigging, thus set up the plan B systems. We opted not to vent, as the air quality (monitored continually by the 1st due Engine with a 4-gas-officer was a TRT member) was good during the entire incident. The vent was staged if needed. We felt venting would have made the victim colder (was wet from moving water in bottom of manhole) and made communicating with him difficult. Our mutual aid HM company from Noblesville (on all our technical cards) was assigned to back-up air monitoring and had 3 other monitors staged with fresh batteries. We did use a second air monitor initially to confirm the readings we were getting from the first monitor. The victim was placed on NRB for entire incident, 2.5 portable O2 caddies were used, and 3 others were staged. The support was getting an M-size cylinder with multilator as rescue was completed. The weather was monitored by a staff officer. We beat the rain by 45 minutes. Part of our plan was to use inflatable pipe plugs off the HM if we were operating during peak sewer usage. Due to the time of day (1310), there was not much water/waste usage. This was confirmed by the senior DPW supervisor. I will follow up with a “lessons learned” report, as there were some things we could have done a bit differently. To be honest, it was a simple run; check air, send the rescuer in with fall protection, package and remove victim. Steve White
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