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Leicestershire’s ISAR Deployments

Ian Holden

District Manager and ISAR Coordinator for Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service, Central Fire and Rescue Station

Ian HoldenIan joined Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service in 1986 as a retained (part time) firefighter. At this time Ian was also working as a coal face electrician for the National Coal Board (later British Coal), a role which gained him 14 years’ underground service working at Ellistown and Nailstone Collieries. In 1991, upon the closure of the pits, Ian moved to wholetime duties, serving at Loughborough, Coalville, Western, Eastern and Central stations and at the training department.

In October 2003, Ian was seconded onto the New Dimension project for USAR implementation, where he sat on national working groups for the USAR national risk assessment process, personal protective equipment selection, and module equipment selection. He was also chair of the national working group on confined spaces, and set up the Technical Rescue team at Southern Fire and Rescue Station.

Ian's experiences with ISAR include refugee camp planning in Cumbria in 1998, a European joint rescue exercise in Finland in 1999, and attending the A&M University USAR school in Texas, USA, both as a student in 2003, and later in 2004 and 2005 as an instructor. Ian has also attended as Sector Commander, Command Support Officer, and as Operations Commander for a number of national ISAR exercises and heavy rescue team assessments at Fort Widley, Hampshire, between 2004 and 2010, and was EU Civil Protection Liaison Officer at the European Civil Protection Mechanism training in Hamburg, Germany, in 2009.

Ian has been deployed to a number of national and international incidents, including an open area night search for a missing person in the Gumley area of Leicestershire in 1996, an earthquake in Izmit, Turkey in 1999, a major building explosion in Glasgow in 2004, and the Indonesian earthquake in 2009, where he led the Leicestershire team.

Andy Hartley

Watch Manager, Technical Rescue, Southern Fire and Rescue Station

Andy HartleyAndy began his professional career at the age of 18 with the Royal Air Force, joining in December 1981 as an Airfield Crash Firefighter. Andy’s six years’ service with the RAF included a six-month tour of duty on Ascension Island and a year in Goose Bay in Labrador, Canada.

In 1988, Andy joined Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service as an operational firefighter. Four years later, Andy was promoted to Crew Manager, a position he held for seven years before being promoted again to Watch Manager. He currently serves as Watch Manager on the Technical Rescue team.

Andy has been a member of ISAR for over ten years. During this time he has attended training courses and exercises in the USA, Poland, Germany and the UK, and has been deployed to major incidents including a major building explosion in Glasgow in 2004, and the Indonesian earthquake in 2009.

Chris Rollestone

Firefighter, Central Fire and Rescue Station

Chris RollestoneChris joined Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service in 1985 as a firefighter, having previously worked as a motor vehicle mechanic.

Chris was one of the founder members of the Leicestershire ISAR Team, where his background in mechanical engineering was used to maintain the original team equipment which used to be stored at Central Fire and Rescue Station. Chris’ deployments include a training course at the A&M University Urban Search and Rescue school in Texas, USA, and the Algerian earthquake in 2003.

Chris’ interests include sailing and motorcycling. He is currently studying for his Yacht Masters qualification, and he regularly organises trips to battlefields and memorials of the First and Second World Wars.

Chris Pritchard

Firefighter, Technical Rescue, Southern Fire and Rescue Station

Chris PritchardChris has trained and worked with dogs for the past 26 years, serving in the Armed Forces (Infantry) in a number of operational theatres around the world, before being transferred to the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, where he became an instructor. This role consisted of training both handlers and dogs for the different types of roles the UK forces carried out at that time, including guard, security, drugs, arms explosive, tracker and police dogs.

Chris joined Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service in 2000, where he served as a retained (part time) firefighter, and as a wholetime firefighter since 2004. Since joining ISAR in 2000, one of his main achievements has been the implementation and coordination of Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) dog teams into the programme; these are made up from a number of different UK Fire and Rescue Services and funded centrally by the UK government. Chris was instrumental in deploying one of the first disaster search and rescue dogs from the UK to a major earthquake (Colombia, 1999) with the charity RAPID UK. Since then, he has deployed USAR dogs to Turkey in 1999, and to the Algerian earthquake of 2003, where he also coordinated other dog teams in carrying out these roles. He has also participated in the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) IEC for UK ISAR’s initial classification in 2006 and the first INSARAG reclassification which took place in 2009.

Chris has project managed a number of USAR dog projects abroad and currently supports the International Rescue Dog Organisation in a number of areas, one of these being an evaluator for Mission Readiness tests.

Ian Nuttall

Firefighter, Technical Rescue, Southern Fire and Rescue Station

Ian NuttallIan joined Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service in May 2003.

Prior to joining Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service, Ian attended the University of Birmingham and graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Environmental Geoscience in June 2001. In 2002 he lived in Zakynthos, Greece, for almost six months, where he did volunteer conservation work and helped to protect the Loggerhead Sea Turtle and its environment.

In 2006, Ian transferred to the Technical Rescue team. As a member of Technical Rescue, Ian is trained to respond to incidents of a technical nature, including road traffic collisions, rope, water, and Urban Search and Rescue incidents, as well as confined space and large animal rescues. In 2009, Ian successfully completed a Diploma in Specialist Rescue from Coventry University.

Ian passed the ISAR selection course in March 2009. Since then he has attended various training events and evening lectures in addition to helping to coordinate personal and deployment equipment for the team.

Earthquake: Christchurch, New Zealand 2011

by Ian Holden, District Manager and ISAR Coordinator for Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service, Central Fire and Rescue Station
Photos: Dr Malcolm Russell

Leicestershire and South Wales team with Maori contractorsOn 21 February 2011 an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale struck the historic city of Christchurch in New Zealand. An early morning telephone call was the first I knew of the disaster that had hit New Zealand whilst we slept. As I tuned in and watched Sky News running constant newsreel footage of the disaster scene in Christchurch’s business and commercial centre, I knew we could be on our way.

An official request for International Search and Rescue was received, and the team was paged to gather at Southern Fire and Rescue Station for the onward departure to Horley Fire and Rescue Station, West Sussex, next to Gatwick Airport. The team consisted of a mix of experienced members, Ian Holden, Andy Hartley, Vince Cooper, Chris Rollestone, Chris Pritchard and ‘young guns’, Rob Kitson and Ian Nuttall.

Leicestershire and South Wales team getting ready to deployUnfortunately the aircraft that was booked for 5am on 22 February failed to materialise, so the team finally left the UK at 5pm from Heathrow on a scheduled, New Zealand Air flight via Los Angeles to Auckland. On arrival in Christchurch, via an internal flight connection to the south island from Auckland, we were greeted with mild sunny weather, much like that expected on a nice day in late August in England.  Invited United Nations certified teams from around the world gathered, including the USA, Australia, China, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, and two ‘local’ New Zealand urban search and rescue task forces. A base camp of operations was set up in Latimer Park, a green area just a short walk from the city centre.

As the camp was set up, the Leicestershire and South Wales teams were first out of the blocks, sent to work on the Pyne Gould Corporation building. This was a five storey 1960s concrete building, built like many in Leicester during that period.

On arrival we were informed that a number of live rescues had been made including one man who had his legs amputated in-situ by an anaesthetist with a Leatherman knife and a hacksaw. He had been on the rear escape stairs after being trapped for 12 hours. His story made the local headlines the next day.

The team’s objective was to search the whole building and to recover any casualties that were found. There was estimated to be around 12 to 15 persons that were still unaccounted for.

Pyne Gould Corporation buildingDue to the extreme state of the building we had to work slowly, de-constructing it piece by piece. All floors were pancaked on top of one another but still attached to the, now leaning, central lift shaft. Structural and demolition engineers pooled all of the options into a plan of how the work was to progress over the next seven days.

By this time heavy plant engineering had arrived, including a 20 tonne crane with a man-riding basket under slung, 360-degree tracked excavators and a 360-degree tracked concrete nibbler. This was a device not many of us had experienced before, but in the hands of one of New Zealand’s expert Maori drivers, was to become one of the most useful items on the incident ground.

Teams conducting a searchIt was identified very early on that asbestos was likely to be present, so respirators and disposable paper coveralls were worn from the outset, making work slow due to decontamination times for meal and rest breaks. Using a combination of visual searching and search cameras, careful cutting and tearing away at the building took place.  The scene was set for the UK team’s next seven days’ and nights’ work.

A big safety turning point came after day three when the main lift shaft was exposed and a ramp was built to allow the nibbler to reach the halfway point up the lift shaft. A cut was made on either side of the column and then a hole in the centre and the top portion was pushed over by the two excavators working in tandem.

Pyne Gould Corporation buildingLife in the base camp was well organised, with hot showers and proper meals available in a tented canteen area (always better than field rations). Although we were working night shifts, it was difficult to get much sleep during the daylight hours because of the noise with search and rescue dogs barking, people talking, plant arriving and generators running constantly. The weather was fine, dry and sunny with temperatures in the low 20s during the day and around 12 degrees at night.

In total a further 13 bodies were retrieved by our teams working with the Australian and New Zealand Police Disaster Victim Identification teams.

As the Pyne Gould Corporation building was cleared and handed back to the New Zealand Police to maintain security, most other heavy urban search and rescue teams were packing to return home. The UK team was tasked with double checking many of the buildings that had had a hasty initial search in the first few days.

Before returning to the UK after 14 days, the team enjoyed some hospitality with the Maori workers involved at the rescue scenes and the New Zealand urban search and rescue teams, including some sightseeing and a Maori festival.