Large Animal Rescue: Is Your Department Ready?

摘要

If your department is located in horse or cattle country or serves an area where large animals pass through, it's only a matter of time until you experience a large animal rescue (LAR). It could be a horse trapped on ice or in mud; cattle loose from a pasture; or, worse yet, animals caught in a fire or trailering accident. Assisting with an LAR might not be your first choice of duty, but the facts that property conservation is second to life safety and firefighters are all-hazards responders mean LAR is quite possibly within the scope of your department's responsibilities. And although a 1,000-pound horse loose and looking for security might intimidate the toughest of firefighters, adding a few LAR techniques to your repertoire of skills isn't as complicated as you might think. Better yet, 90 percent of the items needed for efficient LAR already exist on standard firefighting and rescue apparatus. It helps to realize that an animal incident is a human incident. If we as responders do not mitigate the incident, then well-intentioned citizens will certainly venture in. Stay tuned for the next alarm. You'll soon be responding to a human needing rescuing from an attempt to help an animal. Suffice to assume that when no human lives are overtly threatened by your LAR incident, property conservation, public perception, and the fact that you're called to help will serve as the driving forces for your involvement.