Following on from part one now it’s time to see what the brave folks in the fire service have been up to. Starting in Mildred, Pennsylvania, we see Fire Chief Josh Fitzgerald rescue a man from a porch roof when a fire broke out in the kitchen of his apartment. Luckily, no-one else was home at the time, as seven of the nine apartments in the block are currently let. The fire broke out on the second storey, and the man could not get to the stairs. He climbed out of the window and onto the porch roof below, where Chief Fitzgerald reached him with a twenty-foot ladder. The victim had some cuts and burns from the ordeal, and his apartment was completely gutted. Smoke damage was sustained to the whole building, along with some water damage but the fire damage was contained by the local fire department. Amazingly, it was not the victim who called the fire brigade, but a passer-by. We can only imagine what might have happened if the fire had gone unreported.

Police in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, had to play firefighter when they stumbled upon a house fire where three people were standing on the roof. They had noticed people standing by the driveway of the house looking up, then realised that there were people trapped on the roof. Thinking quickly, the officers borrowed a ladder from a neighbour and rescued the two men and one woman from the burning building. The fire department attended and took and hour and a half to get the fire under control. Six people were treated for smoke inhalation and the local Mayor has praised the officers for their bravery.

A Tall Ladder Rescue

In Newburgh, New York, fire fighters had to undertake one of their tallest rescues when two men got stranded nearly 150 feet in the air in a hydraulic boom lift. They had extended the machine almost as far as it would go when the machine locked and they became stuck. The local fire department only has a 100-foot lift, and was occupied with another emergency at the time, so the police tried to contact the manufacturer to get an over-ride code for the equipment. Unfortunately, the manufacturer declined due to concerns that the bucket had two people inside. A neighbouring fire department with a 130-foot ladder platform was dispatched to help, and while they still fell short of the height achieved by the two stranded men, the managed to improvise with a ladder between the two platforms.

Fire crews in Grand Forks, North Dakota have been raising money for Progressive Supranuclear Palsy after one of their members was diagnosed with the condition last year. Crew-members take turns to sit at the top of the firetruck ladder for one or two hours at a time while volunteers sell refreshments in the car park below. Every one of them is attached to a safety line in case of dizziness and they are not allowed to stay up there for more than two hours. This ladder-a-thon differs from others where the firefighters sit in the cherry picker bucket, as they are sitting just on the aerial ladder mounted to the truck. They are also displaying their antique fire truck and are looking forward to getting a new one next year for their next ladder-a-thon.

Keep Your Ladders Close

Unsecured ladders on vehicles can cause major accidents if they fall into the carriageway and removing them means closing the road temporarily, which is no mean feat on a motorway. That’s what the Highways Department had to do when a ladder fell from a vehicle and blocked a lane on the M5 between junctions six and seven. The incident was reported just after 9am so this incident did not affect the rush hour traffic, but still necessitated a lane closure to deal with it. Police officers in Hertfordshire closed the A10 themselves temporarily while they removed a ladder from the carriageway shortly after 8am. By 8.15 the road was open for business and the Highways Agency collected the ladder from the side of the road later in the day. To avoid becoming involved in an accident caused by something in the road, stay far back from vehicles that appear to be overloaded or with unsecure loads, look far ahead to spot any driver suddenly braking or swerving to avoid something, and always report obstacles in the road to the police. Last month we reported on two cases where serious injury was caused as a result of a collision with a ladder in the road.

Now for something completely different! In Norfolk an ageing cockerel is taking advantage of ladder technology to access his roost. The bird is thought to be around eight-years-old, quite an advanced age for a rooster, and his owners at the Hillside Animal Sanctuary noticed him struggling to get up to his favourite tree perch to roost at night. Without shelter high in a tree he would become fox food very quickly, so the staff thought about ways they could provide access for him to his preferred branch. Eventually they decided on a ladder system that helps him navigate the bottom of the tree where the branches are far apart and gives him direct access to his sleeping spot. The staff were initially unsure if he would take to using the contraption but he worked it out straight away and can now get up and down from the tree with ease.

That’s all for this month, but please remember to stay safe when using ladders. Hopefully some of the accident stories we report can help you think again before taking a risk or cutting a corner, and we also suggest that you don’t try balancing a motorbike on your head and climbing up a ladder!