On Saturday April 30th, Carroll County held its annual Junior Day at the Carroll County Fire Training Center in Westminster. Junior Day is a fun filled day of demonstrations, skill stations and competitions for our young aspiring firefighters (ages 12-16).

For Gamber's juniors, the day actually starts the night before where they get a chance to "sleep in". During the night, they get a chance to get some extra practice on the events they will be competing in during the following day. After training and pizza, they got to sleep in a bunkroom for the night.

The day started early at 6:30 am but they were eager and excited to get going. After a quick breakfast of cold pizza they all piled into ET-133, Utility-13 and Duty 13 for a ride to the event. The day started out with signing in and a selection of doughnuts and coffee which our juniors took full advantage of. After some announcements they made their way up the hill for a tour of Haz-Mat 30.

Once the tour was done, they got to watch a car being cut apart by some veteran firefighters including our own Chief Charlie Green. Next up was a member of Montgomery County's USAR (Urban Search and Rescue) team, who brought his K-9 partner "Pierce". Pierce and his handler had an excellent demonstration where he climbed up and across ladders on cars and found a "victim" hidden in a huge pile of pallets.

With the demonstrations being over with, the juniors started their skill stations with EMS. They learned about taking vital signs such as pulse, blood pressure, respirations, and skin condition. Next up, they got to do some overland rappelling. They donned harnesses and used a rescue 8 belay to lower themselves down a steep hill. Search and rescue/confined space was the next station where they learned some firefighter drags and got to go through the "maze" in teams. Once through the maze, they went upstairs to the confined space prop and crawled through that as well.

The final skill station of the day was ladders. Truck 2 (Hampstead) positioned its ladder into the fourth story window of the training tower. Wearing a ladder belt, the juniors proceeded up to the top where they answered some questions before climbing into the window. There were definitely some mixed feelings met at the window but everyone did a great job. After the juniors finished with the truck, it was repositioned at a 70 degree angle and fully extended to 105' for the seniors to climb on.

Lunch time was next and gave them some time to relax and unwind because next up was the competitions. The three timed events were, gear race, hose race, and bucket brigade. We were competing against teams from Sykesville, Hampstead, Union Bridge, Manchester, Lineboro, Harney, New Windsor, Mt. Airy, and Taneytown. The first event, gear race, consisted of four juniors starting from a seated position and putting on the full firefighter ensemble including pants, jacket, helmet gloves and eye protection. Then, once fully dressed, they had to climb into a nearby engine.

Once the last member in closed the door, time would stop. It was a close race but they were beat out by only a couple seconds. The second event was the hose race. Four more juniors would start from a seated position and would assemble three pieces of 1 3/4" hoseline and connect it to a hydrant. A nozzle was also connected on the end and once charged they would knock a tennis ball off a cone in the distance. The third event of the day was the bucket brigade. This time five juniors lined up and worked together to fill a large barrel of water by passing 5 gallon buckets back and forth from a folding tank to the barrel until a ball floated out of the top. They worked together seamlessly and won!!!

With the competitions out of the way, one last activity, in which everyone was looking forward to, remained. The "battle of the bucket" was not part of the competitions but definitely the most fun. A bucket was suspended with a pulley on a cable that was stretched between a telephone pole and the training tower. Two handlines were positioned on either end and teams used them to push the bucket to the opposing team's side. Everyone got soaked including some audience members. One junior didn't think he had gotten wet enough and was promptly thrown into the folding tank.

Awards and certificates were handed out and this ended Junior Day 2011. I hope everyone had a great time and we'll see you all out at next year's.

COMPETITION RESULTS:

Donning of the Gear

1st place- Union Bridge
2nd place- Mount Airy
3rd place- Lineboro

Hose Hook Up

1st place- Sykesville
2nd place- Lineboro
3rd place- Mount Airy

Bucket Brigade

1st place- Taneytown
2nd place- Sykesville
3rd place- Mount Airy

Overall

1st place- Sykesville
2nd place- Mount Airy
3rd place- Taneytown & Lineboro (Tie)