Oregon Public Broadcasting

First responders from across Oregon will finish up an 11-day training session  Thursday to teach them better search methods in case a building collapses. Kristian Foden-Vencil reports.

After several classroom days, members of the Urban Search and Rescue Task Force were taken to a simulation of a collapsed building in Springfield.

Large pieces of scrap concrete were piled on top of each other, and volunteers placed inside.

Rich Hoover, with the State Fire Marshall’s Office, says such rescues are complicated.

Rich Hoover: “They use specialized drills to drill a pilot hole to search in there, maybe an infrared camera to determine what the situation is like. And then they have specialized saws that have to cut through the concrete. You know when you get there, you have to have all that specialized training to make sure you can identify the injuries of the victim and that you extract them in the correct way as to not cause any further injury.”

Homeland Security grants for such exercises are running out. Hoover says next year they plan to ask the state legislature to pick up the $1 million price tag.