A crane operator experiencing a medical emergency more than 200 feet in the air was safely rescued Wednesday night after a nearly two-hour operation by the Fort Worth Fire Department\u2019s specialized rescue team.<\/p>\n
Fire officials said crews were called around 7:30 p.m. to a construction site in the 1300 block of South Main Street, above a parking garage near John Peter Smith Hospital. The worker was inside a crane cab roughly 220 feet, or about 20 stories, above the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was after dinner, we just cleaned up and the station was having a little social time. We see that it\u2019s a medical call but 200 feet in the air on a crane. So we\u2019re like, OK, this is going to be us!\u201d said Lt. Brian Call with the Fort Worth Fire Department.<\/p>\n
The Tactical Rescue Team, which regularly trains for emergencies involving tall structures like cranes, bridges and high-rises, has teams spread out at stations throughout the city. The crew at Fire Station 2 was the closest to the crane, so they quickly jumped into action, with the help of other nearby stations.<\/p>\n
“We have extensive training across the department in all kinds of different specialties. At this station in particular, we have hazmat training and we also have technical rescue training, which incorporates ropes, structural collapse training, and confined space training,” explained Morgan Hix, a Fort Worth Fire Department engineer and one of the members who climbed up the crane.<\/p>\n
First responders reached the operator quickly and began providing medical care, but it soon became clear he could not descend the crane ladder on his own because of his condition. Those who braved the ascent said the adrenaline rush of the situation kept them focused.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a healthy respect for heights. I wouldn\u2019t say I\u2019m scared of heights, but just like anybody, it\u2019s respect,\u201d said firefighter Monty Bryant.<\/p>\n
The group that made the climb set up a system to safely lower the man. They secured the patient and brought him down carefully to the top of the parking garage below, where a ground crew was coordinating closely with those working high above.<\/p>\n
\u201cA rescue like this is such a collaborative effort; it\u2019s not the four people that are in the bucket,\u201d said Hix. \u201cThere are a ton of people in the ground. They were helping us coordinate, running things by bouncing ideas off each other up top, as well as we try to get this done in the most effective way possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rescue was completed at about 9:24 p.m., roughly 1 hour and 52 minutes after crews first arrived. The crane operator was then transported by ambulance to a nearby hospital and is expected to be OK, officials said. No firefighters were injured.<\/p>\n
Firefighter Rick Aguilar says the urgency of the situation outweighs any fear.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s something I don\u2019t really think about. Let me get to the patient, let me figure out what\u2019s going on and then go from there, that stuff really doesn\u2019t kind of phase me,\u201d Aguilar said. \u201cThe job is gotta get done, what do we gotta do?\u201d<\/p>\n
Call said confidence in the team\u2019s training played a critical role in the outcome.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re waiting, we\u2019re looking and completely confident in the skills and abilities of the crew,\u201d he said. \u201cWe train all the time so we know that everyone there\u2026 is going to be ready to do what\u2019s needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fire officials noted that while dramatic, the rescue reflects the wide range of calls firefighters handle beyond fighting fires.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re here to serve this community, this is our job \u2013 and I think this particular instance is more glamorous than others,\u201d Hix said. \u201cBut there are people out there doing the same job today and there are people who are gonna do it tomorrow, and we\u2019re gonna come back and do it every single time we are asked to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A crane operator experiencing a medical emergency more than 200 feet in the air was safely rescued Wednesday…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":782787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,7371,7372,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-782786","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fort-worth","10":"tag-fortworth","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-tx","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116541067769835148","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/782787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}