Thanks to a specialized paddle board purchased through a grant from Vashon Rotary, island firefighters say they can now respond to marine rescue situations more quickly and safely.
Vashon Island Fire & Rescue (VIFR) receives about 30 water-related calls a year, according to Ben Davidson, who heads the department’s marine rescue team. However, VIFR’s marine unit — a Zodiac-type boat — has sometimes limited the department’s response. It must be towed behind a vehicle and deployed from either Burton or Dockton — potentially a long way from an emergency — and it cannot be used in high winds or big waves, he said. Furthermore, sometimes those responding to an emergency have had to wade in and out of the water to assist people, which is potentially dangerous for all involved, said Brigitte Schran Brown, who serves on VIFR’s board of commissioners. Brown helped obtain the approximately $2,100 grant, which provided funds for the board as well as two wet suits, masks, fins and snorkels.
“The measure of safety this little board offers our people is immeasurable,” she said.
The new board is designed specifically for water rescues, and members of the department say it will provide multiple benefits.
“It allows you to get out much sooner, not be exposed to cold water and put (patients) on top and get on the board with them and paddle them in,” Davidson said.
Not long ago, he added, the department received a call about an overturned canoe off Dilworth Point. The Coast Guard and King County Sheriff’s Office were on the scene, but the area was too far away from a boat launch for the department to dispatch its boat. Instead VIFR responders, who could have been assisting, were relegated to watching the effort through binoculars from the beach.
This board will help prevent such situations, both Davidson and Brown said, as it is inflatable, can fit easily in a fire department vehicle, be inflated within 60 seconds and be deployed from anywhere on the shore, even in wind and waves. Members of the department who use it — all certified rescue swimmers — are trained to swim in tough conditions even without other flotation equipment, Davidson said. The board is not a stand-up paddle board — popular now for recreation — but is intended to be paddled by someone on his or her knees or stomach.
“It is stable, and you move along really fast,” he added.
The department has had rescue swimmers for some time, but last year, it joined the South King County Fire Training Consortium, and the first wave of VIFR firefighters have completed that program’s rescue swimmer certification process, including Davidson, Joe Wolf and Darren Lenz. About a dozen more department members are slated to go through the certification process later this summer, Brown said.
The certification requires participants to complete a variety of timed tasks in succession, including a 500-yard swim, 15 minutes of treading water and an 800-yard snorkel swim.
Rotary’s immediate past president Linda Bianchi said that the organization typically provides money to nonprofits, not agencies funded by taxpayers, but the board made an exception in this situation.
“It is such an important item for the fire department to have this summer, we decided to support it,” she said. “I think it was worthwhile. We were happy about it.”
