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HAZMAT & MCI Incident (Multi-Agency Drill) - Dagsboro, DE
Saturday, March 2, 2013

On Saturday 3/2/2013 members of the Frankford Volunteer Fire Company Station 76 participated in a MCI & HAZMAT training exercise sponsored by Dagsboro Volunteer Fire Department Station 73. The incident began with Dagsboro VFC Sta73, Sussex County EMS and the Dagsboro Police Department being dispatched to a report of a motor vehicle collision (MVC) involving a train and a passenger vehicle at the intersection of Iron Branch Road and the Norfolk Southern rail crossing north of Bunting Road. Ptlm. Dave Ober of the Dagsboro Police Department was first to arrive on scene and reported one vehicle on its side at the intersection of Iron Branch Road and the rail crossing with a priority 1 patient trapped beneath the vehicle. He subsequently reported a second vehicle overturned west of the roadway adjacent to a tank car that was releasing what appeared to be a propane vapor cloud. Deputy Chief John Marvel of Dagsboro (Sta73) was next to arrive and established IC. He immediately upgraded the incident to a HAZMAT response which alerted the Frankford (Sta76) and Millsboro (Sta83) Volunteer Fire Companies and the Sussex County EMS Special Operations Unit to respond to the scene. Lt. Al Townsend of Dagsboro (Sta73) was assigned to Operations and split his crew into supression and extrication teams under the control of Asst. Chief Chad Hudson and Asst. Chief Dylan Betts of Dagsboro (Sta73). Upon learning there were six subjects trapped inside the vehicle adjacent to the tank car, Deputy Chief Marvel upgraded the incident to a Level I MCI bringing the response of additional manpower and apparatus from the Selbyville (Sta88), Gumboro (Sta79), Indian River (Sta80), and Millville (Sta84) Volunteer Fire Companies, LifeNet aviation, and Sussex County Emergency Operations Mobile Command Post. The suppression team deployed two hand lines and an aerial platform from Truck 84 to disperse the propane vapors and provide a water curtain allowing Asst. Chief Hudson's crew to extricate the victims from the wreckage. Once the victims were safely recovered, Sussex County EMS treated the injured and prepared them for transport while suppression efforts continued to disperse the propane vapors. After the scene was under control, a crew approached the tank car and shut off the control valve which stopped the release of propane vapors and rendered the scene safe. This was a well planned and executed training exercise with participation from nearly every fire company in Sussex County, DE. The exercise was observed and critiqued by Asst. Chief Doug Scott of Millville VFC (Sta84) and Asst. Chief Steve Deery of Indian River VFC (Sta80) along with instructors from the Delaware State Fire School who were impressed with the turnout for this large scale event. This exercise provided neighboring fire companies the opportunity to train together and to determine areas for improvement in the event of a real scenario. A special note of thanks goes out to the members of the Dagsboro VFC Sta73 for planning and sponsoring this event, their auxiliary for keeping fire/rescue personnel well fed and hydrated throughout the day, and to the crews from the Laurel (Sta81), Lewes (Sta82), Seaford (Sta87) and Dover (Sta46) Volunteer Fire Companies who provided cover for Dagsboro (Sta73) and Frankford (Sta76) during this exercise.