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- Nov 27, 2008
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The Scaling Ladder
- Thread starter firebuffkevin
- Start date
I "used" the scaling ladder twice in my 37 years in the department. I came into the FDNY 3/30/60. I was assigned to the 6th Division. The training school was in session for a couple of weeks so they just assigned two of us probies each to ride with 6th Division companies. Unbelieveable but no training, no personal equipment, nothing. My officer was a Lt. name of Whitney. They had a wooden spare ladder. A kid came into qtrs and so help me asked if we could get a cat out of a tree. Whitney said O.K. it would give us a chance to use the spare. We got the cat down, and I never took another cat out of a tree for the next 37 years. Our second day on the job we (19) were called to the rock (Div. of Training) for evaluation. Myself and the other proby had regular gear on. When we arrived at the rock a Lt. came over and gave us orders for a simulated fire in one of the vacant buildings there (Roosevelt Island). He told me and the other proby to put a scaling ladder to a second floor window. I asked one of the guys what a scaling ladder is. He pointed to it and we took it off the truck. As we tried to raise it we dropped it onto the head (helmet) of a passing ff. The Lt. seeing this runs over to us and says "how long are you guys on the job?" I ask him "what time is it?" He says "what the hell does that mean?" I say "well we started yesterday at 0900 so I guess 25 hours." He has us sit under a tree and we watch the evolutions the rest of the period.
Twelve years later I am a Lt. in the same firehouse, 50 engine in with 19 truck. It was St. Patricks Day. Myself and 6 or 7 of the other guys were going to march in the parade. I was standing in front of qtrs with a few of the guys, in my Class "A"'s waiting to go to the city when a civilian pulls up in front of qtrs in his car and tells us there is a fire around the corner. I go down the corner (166th and Washington Ave.) and see a heavy column of smoke a block or so down around a corner. There is a pull box right there so I pull it. We (4 of us) run down and we have a 5 story occupied tenement with a heavy fire in a second floor apartment. We take a couple of people out of an adjoining apartment, the fire is now out into the public hall. As we go back down to the street there is a man and woman hanging out a third floor window. With that 19 pulls up and we take a 25' extension ladder off the rig, then the scaling ladder to reach the people. We get them out. We find out later that the apartment belonged to a brother of one of the guys who had just been promoted out of 19. The brother was blind and dies in the fire. The fire went to a second alarm.
A friend of mine, Gene Dowling of 25 truck made a scaling ladder rescue off the tip of the 100' aerial at a post office fire in Manhattan. He received the Bennett medal. That had to be one hairy rescue.
Twelve years later I am a Lt. in the same firehouse, 50 engine in with 19 truck. It was St. Patricks Day. Myself and 6 or 7 of the other guys were going to march in the parade. I was standing in front of qtrs with a few of the guys, in my Class "A"'s waiting to go to the city when a civilian pulls up in front of qtrs in his car and tells us there is a fire around the corner. I go down the corner (166th and Washington Ave.) and see a heavy column of smoke a block or so down around a corner. There is a pull box right there so I pull it. We (4 of us) run down and we have a 5 story occupied tenement with a heavy fire in a second floor apartment. We take a couple of people out of an adjoining apartment, the fire is now out into the public hall. As we go back down to the street there is a man and woman hanging out a third floor window. With that 19 pulls up and we take a 25' extension ladder off the rig, then the scaling ladder to reach the people. We get them out. We find out later that the apartment belonged to a brother of one of the guys who had just been promoted out of 19. The brother was blind and dies in the fire. The fire went to a second alarm.
A friend of mine, Gene Dowling of 25 truck made a scaling ladder rescue off the tip of the 100' aerial at a post office fire in Manhattan. He received the Bennett medal. That had to be one hairy rescue.
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2008
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Great stories.