Leo Johnson
Breathing Apparatus
November 2019
This week Leo has been back at HQ for the 3 week Breathing Apparatus part of his training. Find out how he found the training & what he’s got coming up next.
Water Rescue Training
October 2019 – Leo Johnson
Otley Fire Station
This week Leo has teamed up with trainees on the 15 week course to complete his water rescue training. Like Leo, one of the other trainees, Charlie, is also training to become an on-call Firefighter at Otley Fire Station. Although they are on different training courses, both recruits complete exactly the same training and will work together on certain elements of the course.
Line Rescue Training
October 2019 – Leo Johnson
Otley Fire Station
This week Leo has been up our HQ in Birkenshaw to complete his line rescue training course.
Update on Training
October 2019 – Leo Johnson
Otley Fire Station
The past few weeks have been extremely busy. I have successfully completed the core skills module, which includes learning how the fire appliance works, how to pump water, how to pitch a 13.5m ladder and how to tie knots and lines. I have been attending Otley station on both Tuesday and Thursday evenings to assist my development and I’ve also done some full days at the weekends. I have also completed my casualty care training. This training covered a lot of first aid techniques including how to resuscitate a casualty. I have really enjoyed the casualty care training and found it very useful both as a Firefighter and in my day to day life.
Regular Training Week:
Tuesday nights from 18:30 to 21:30 are drill night with everyone on the station. The crew have been helping me cover my core skills modules and practice any areas I struggled with.
On Wednesday evenings from 19:00 to 21:00 I have been covering casualty care. I am lucky as one of the on-call firefighters here at Otley is a casualty care instructor so he has helped me enormously with my casualty care module.
Thursday nights from 19:30 to 21:30 has been an extra drill night to cover all areas of the core skills module. Usually there will be around three to four firefighters attend to help me and another on-call trainee from a nearby station with our training. The commitment and encouragement from the crew has been invaluable.
As I said previously we have had a couple of full days on Saturdays and Sundays covering pumping from open water, pitching the ladder and going through identifying faults with the pump. We have been doing this at Rawdon fire station as they have an open water tank. It’s been great to develop team working with a crew from another station as this helps replicate what would happen at an incident.
I’m now starting my road traffic collision (RTC) module and will be doing some of this on station as well as going up to headquarters for a few intensive hands on training days. We have a few cars on station to train with and will go through some scenarios up at headquarters such as cars on their sides or upside down’ learning how to stabilise cars and extricate casualties out without injuring them further or causing distress. I am looking forward to this and think it will be one of the more enjoyable modules.
I am really enjoying my training and as I have passed my core skills module, I can now ride the fire appliance as an observer. I have been out on my first blue light run and found it really exciting. The training and hard work is paying off!
Over the next three months most of my training will be up at headquarters, where I will be joining onto the 15 week trainee’s course for breathing apparatus, line rescue, water rescue and hazardous materials. Once I have passed these courses and my RTC training I will have completed all my training.
Modular Training
If you don’t have 15 weeks free to complete the training course, then the Modular course is for you! The Modular training course allows you to train to become a Firefighter in your own time. Leo explains all in the above video.
Thinking of applying?
After completing the application process around 6 weeks ago, Leo talks about why & how he applied to become an on-call Firefighter and talks us through the application process.
About On-Call
Leo answers some of the common questions that we get asked when people are thinking about applying.