What They Bought With the Grant:

• Rapid intervention team (RIT) training and equipment
• Ropes, harnesses, other rescue equipment
• Self-contained breathing apparatuses (SCBAs)
• Personal protective clothing

How the Grant Has Helped:

The Town of Littleton in northwest New Hampshire has about 6,000 residents and covers 50 square miles plus 4 square miles of inland water. Littleton Fire-Rescue (LFR) has mutual aid arrangements with surrounding towns, including Bethlehem, Lisbon, Whitefield, Dalton, and Monroe, and these add another 200 square miles to its overall response area.

A 2004 Assistance to Firefighters Grant enabled Littleton to purchase the training and equipment needed to develop and deploy swift water rescue and rapid intervention teams. The funds purchased rescue equipment, such as ropes, carabiners, harnesses, belay, mechanical advantage, brake-and-anchor systems, and other items.

LFR is a combination fire department and the only full-time fire service organization in the region. Its staff of 6 full-time staff members and 15 on-call members includes instructors who provide bimonthly trainings in water rescue, rope rescue, ice rescue, confined space rescue, and has received training in both fire prevention and fire suppression. and includes a number of instructors with expertise in light rescue.

LFR receives approximately 800 calls per year. In 2004, this included about 406 rescue and EMS calls, which was a 6.5 percent increase over 2003, and a 31.6 percent increase over 2000. This past June, the local news media captured a swift water rescue conducted by Littleton firefighters. A 12-year-old boy had become trapped on the rocks in the Ammonoosuc River . According to the reports, he had waded in to cool off and been pulled off his feet by the fast-moving current. Photos of the rescue were published, showing Littleton Captain Jeff Whitcomb and firefighter Bill Sargent bringing the boy to safety using AFG-funded gear.

“Much of the equipment used at the water rescue also has been used at other incidents,” says Chief Joe Mercieri. He described an incident in which firefighters were dispatched to the scene of a logging accident in a rural part of town. “We found a man with a broken leg who was trapped down a 200-foot embankment” says Mercieri, “and the only egress point was from above.” The firefighters reached the man, provided medical attention, packaged him, and, using the rescue equipment, extricated him without further injury to the patient or any injury to the rescuers. In a similar incident in a nearby town, the firefighters responded to a motor vehicle accident in which a pickup truck had left the roadway and fallen over a 150-foot embankment. “We were brought in as a resource to perform the technical rescue of getting the injured driver from the truck. He was packaged in a litter and brought up over the embankment to a waiting ambulance,” says Mercieri.

In spring of 2004, 10 Littleton members received rapid intervention team (RIT) and self-rescue training. ”It would have been difficult to obtain this kind of quality training for this number of people without the assistance of this grant,” says Mercieri. “Currently, we are working closely with another department to develop a regional RIT that will be able to respond to incidents within two mutual aid systems in two States and share equipment to minimize costs.”

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