Police officers and firefighters from across Western Connecticut trained on water rescue in real-world conditions Wednesday in Bridgeport.
The U.S. Coast Guard hosts the trainings four times per year in Connecticut to help first responders who are called to water rescues respond quickly and hopefully avoid tragedy.
The departments met at Captain’s Cove in Bridgeport, boarded rescue boats, headed into the Long Island Sound and rehearsed a simulated emergency scenario – an active shooter on a Connecticut ferry with passengers jumping off the boat to escape.
“In situations like that where you have a lot of people entering the water, it’s important that you have a large, combined rescue effort,” Lt. Matt Richards, of the US Coast Guard, said.
The Coast Guard conducts rescue-response simulations throughout the year to keep the skills of police and fire department personnel up to date so they can be ready to save when – not if – an emergency happens.
“If they’re going to be the first ones on scene a lot of times, we’re trying to educate them on first search patterns. They’ll get on scene, determined drift and see which way the currents are pushing the person and then they go into a search pattern,” BMC Kevin Wyman, of the U.S. Coast Guard, said.
And while the water emergencies they’ll face might never be as extreme as the one they rehearsed, Coast Guard leaders said that as temperatures climb and more people head out onto the water, the rescue skills they’re practicing will be put to the test.
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“We want to make sure we have the same terminology and the same goals and we have the same procedures as we conduct search and rescue,” Lt. Richards said.
