Features

By Captain Jeff Manney

Mock crash scenes stirs memories of Arctic tragedy

Scattered bodies, staggering survivors, whispered reassurances to the injured - for those who witnessed it, the mass casualty exercise at 19 Wing Wing Comox was the stuff, (if not of nightmares), then of some very unpleasant dreams.

For at least one rescuer, however, the exercise was a potent reminder of what a real tragedy looks like.

Fifteen years ago, nearly to the day, Warrant Officer Éric Larouche parachuted into a raging blizzard to help rescue 13 survivors of a CC-130 Hercules crash near Canadian Forces Station Alert. A decade and a half later, Larouche, who earned the Meritorious Service Medal for his Arctic heroism, now faced another scene of chaos and crisis.

"It was extremely close to reality," WO Larouche said, surveying the fog-shrouded crash simulation staged around the firefighter training area at 19 Wing Comox. "I used the Alert crash as an example when I briefed my team on what to expect today. If you want to do a job as well in real life as you do in practice, then you must make your practice as real as possible."

To that end, fellow Search and Rescue Technician (SAR Tech) Sergeant Dan Lamoureux of the Canadian Forces School of Search and Rescue created the "perfect storm" of an accident scenario. A Dash-8 aircraft en route from Comox to Port Hardy had crashed two hours north of the base, careening into a car-pool parking lot. As the fuselage burned, upended cars lay tangled together, their trapped and injured occupants crying out for help.

SAR Techs were first on the scene. In real life they would parachute in from a 442 Transport and Rescue Squadron aircraft, but this team included SAR Techs from across the country, who gather at Comox every two years to re-certify their medical skills. This was their exercise.

Holding the event on base also ensured wing firefighters and medical staff could benefit from the training. So as SAR Techs crawled into the wrecked vehicles to render first aid, firefighters using the jaws-of-life cut away roofs and doors, their blades working just inches away from the rescuers inside.

"There was a lot of reality going on," said an obviously pleased WO Lamoureux as medics carried away the last patient. "The fires burning, the mayhem, the bodies laying around - it's really important to expose our people to that. And I'm thrilled about the way they're working together. Just listen to how professional everyone sounds."

For WO Larouche, a Winnipeg-based SAR Tech, the teamwork was also good to see. But he remembers a much quieter night on October 30, 1991 when he landed hard in the snow amid the shattered remains of a CC-130 Hercules transport aircraft.

"We were alone in Alert," he recalled. "There were no firefighters or paramedics. We had to survive there for 36 hours, using parachutes for shelters, digging people into the snow to keep them alive. There was a lot more improvisation."

Those memories weren't the only link between today's exercise and a 15-year-old tragedy that took the lives of five people. "Most of the equipment we're using today was designed because of that accident," WO Larouche said. "We learned it may take a long time to evacuate patients, so we now have better tents, better stoves and our medical skills have changed dramatically."

Being part of such an event has had an equally dramatic effect on his own life. "It forms you," WO Larouche said. "You know that what you practice for works. You discover your weaknesses. You constantly learn, evolve and improve, so that others might live."

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