Published: Wednesday, 16th January, 2008 12:30
Alloa firefighter is prepared for disaster
By Bob Lovik
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John Noble will pass on his expertise in search and rescue techniques to other firefighters.
Pic by: Jan van der Merwe
AN ALLOA firefighter has returned from America where he received technical training to respond to terrorist attacks and other disasters.
John Noble (46) was one of 22 Scots who made the trip to Longview, Texas, to take part in an intensive two week urban search and rescue course designed to add to the firefighters’ expertise by “training the trainers”.
John and his colleagues are now certified structural collapse technicians and are the only rescue workers in the UK to have this qualification.
John told the Advertiser, “This training was primarily brought out because of the terrorist threat and because of the 9/11 attacks, but it isn’t just for that kind of situation.
“The training is also for dealing with situations like a gas explosion.”
The training included learning techniques on how to reinforce a collapsed building in order to make it safe in order to rescue casualties, and the course took place in a disused brewery, and simulated real-life emergency situations.
John said, “The conditions at the brewery were very realistic. It wasn’t staged like a training centre.
“For one exercise, an entire road was closed and blocked off so we could train shoring up a rail bridge.
“This took place on a Sunday when the there would be the least amount of traffic, and a local news crew even came out to film us.”
John was a team leader of one of the four training squads made up of five Scots and a Longview firefighter.
John said that the two nationalities worked well together.
He said, “We all got on really well. We all had the same sense of humour which must be universal with firefighters from all over the world.”
This was John’s second trip to Texas for training.
He took part in a training course four years ago in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. John has also taken on the role of instructor abroad.
During a trip to Russia last summer, he taught rescue workers lessons on dealing with road accidents and how to extract crash victims from crumpled cars.
While understanding the Texan drawl may take some time, that was nothing compared with trying to communicate with the Russians.
John said, “Their English was every bit as good as my Russian – which is nil.”
Although there was an interpreter on site, John found that he could effectively teach the Russians using sign language.
When a surprised interpreter asked John how he communicated an effective life saving technique to a Russian who spoke no English, it was the Russian who answered.
He said, “One rescuer always knows what the other one is thinking.”
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