Firefighters do rescue training on Pekin buses headed for scrapyard

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

That old adage fit to a 'T” the situation facing the Pekin Community School District. For the past two years, the district has won grants to replace school buses that no longer meet the Environmental Protection Agency's emission standards.

The district received $40,000 to replace two buses. The only catch was that Pekin had to stop using two old buses that were replaced. In fact, the district had to disable the buses so they could never be driven again.

Gary Dickey of the Packwood Fire Department heard this news and saw an opportunity. Firefighters attend classes where they train on using equipment like rescue tools to extricate a person from a vehicle. These training exercises are most frequently performed on passenger cars because they are never in short supply. It's much rarer that firefighters can practice on a bus, and that's why Dickey placed a call to Pekin Superintendent Dave Harper.

Dickey asked Harper if the district would be willing to donate the buses to the local fire departments that serve the school. Harper was more than happy to help. On July 13, seventeen members of the Packwood and Richland fire departments went to the parking lot outside the Pekin school where two buses were waiting to be cut up. Hedrick Fire Department is also in Pekin's district, but those firefighters had just gone through similar training earlier this year.

Harper said this was a great partnership between the school and fire departments. He said the district has 21 buses in its fleet, and tries to replace two of them every year. He was glad that the two oldest buses – from 2006 – were put to good use training the very firefighters who protect the school district.

Pekin received two new buses courtesy of the EPA's clean diesel rebate grant, and will receive two more in October from the same program.

Jerry Eslick, instructor for the Iowa Fire Service, led the training that day, sponsored by the Fire Service Training Fund. Eslick said school buses are very valuable for training because they are hard to get. Normally, salvage yards will pay a pretty penny for all that metal, so the local fire departments were lucky to receive the buses as a gift.

Eslick said he's conducted at least 100 classes like the one he did July 13. He said responding to a bus accidents presents several unique challenges, such as the possibility of a large number of casualties, particularly to children.

That said, Eslick was quick to point out that children are safer riding a bus than many other vehicles because of the soft padding of the seat in front of them. Additionally, in an accident between a bus and another vehicle, the bus is usually the larger of the two and thus will sustain less damage.

Since the firefighters had the luxury of practicing on two buses, one was left on its wheels and the other was put on its side. For the bus on its side, the firefighters cut a hole into its top. They also removed the windows in the back, and with just a few cuts, were able to create a hole large enough to walk through.

'The firefighters were very eager to learn,” Eslick said. 'I thank them for having me come down.”

Eslick said buses present a challenge to cutting tools like a reciprocating saw or the Jaws of Life. Modern cars are mostly made of plastics, but buses are still made of steel, about three to four times stronger than plastic. That means it takes longer to cut open a bus than a car.

Before the firefighters began cutting the bus, they placed supports on the two ends so it wouldn't move during cutting. The firefighters also practiced cutting seats out, and removing the windshield so children could escape that direction if escaping out the back was not an option.

Firefighters worked in groups of four in their full gear. They had to take water breaks in the shade because it was an exceptionally hot day.