Swift Water / Flood Rescue

Swiftwater and flood rescue courses are essential because moving water is statistically the most dangerous rescue environment. Obtaining training provides critical skills in self-rescue, hazard identification, and rope-based extractions, ensuring that emergency responders, military personnel, or other emergency service agencies can safely survive and operate in a high-velocity water incident.

Our water rescue courses are designed in compliance with the National Fire Protection Association guidelines as well as industry standards. They provide both information and hands-on training to individuals who may need or potentially need to respond to a water rescue emergency.

Floods in the United States are a more severe and costly problem that affects millions of people and hundreds of communities each year. Floods are devastating, with high impacts on lives, livelihoods, infrastructure, and ecosystems; this is especially true for low-income communities. Flooding is the most common natural disaster in the United States, accounting for nearly 10% of the costs to repair damage caused by natural disasters. Between 2019 and 2022, nearly $26.8 billion was spent on repairs due to floods. Flood deaths average was roughly 114 annually between 2011 and 2021, but that number has increased by 146% since 2021, with more than 130 major flood disasters declared.

This is why are water rescue courses are designed to be practical, realistic, and informational with a mixture of both didactics (classroom) and practical hand-on exercises.

Swift Water Flood Rescue AWARENESS

This course is designed for all emergency services personnel, municipal and utility employees, outdoor professionals, and anyone who may respond to water incidents. Responders must be able to recognize risks and dangers, and be able to take appropriate action to ensure personal, team, and scene safety.

In the Awareness program, we will address the need for water search and rescue, scene safety, assessment and management, activation of the Emergency Response System, training and resources needed to perform water operations, and rescue vs. recovery operations.

The course content meets NFPA 1006, 1021, & 2500 – Standards on Operations and Training for Technical Rescue Incidents –Water Search and Rescue – Awareness Level.

No Prerequisites

Swift Water Flood Rescue OPERATIONS

This course is designed to provide students with both a theoretical and practical knowledge of the basics of swiftwater rescue. The class includes classroom instruction and practical field exercises.

Students are trained in hazard recognition, equipment use, and basic shore and boat-based rescue techniques, as well as a wide variety of other skills. After completing this course, personnel will also be able to be in the support role for technician level rescuers in higher risk technical water rescues.

The course content meets NFPA 1006, 1021, & 2500 – Standards on Operations and Training for Technical Rescue Incidents –Water Search and Rescue – Operations Level.

PREREQUISTES:

Must have completed an Awareness course in last 18 months

300 meter swim in 12 minutes using any stroke.

Swift Water Flood Rescue TECHICIAN

The SRT course provides rescuers with the fundamentals of survival in moving water and is recommended for anyone who may be called upon to effect in-water rescues. Students gain knowledge in hydrology and river classifications, size-up, site control and scene management. Practical skills include self-rescue, swiftwater swimming and the fundamentals of shore, boat and in-water rescues. Additionally students are introduced to the basics of boat handling and the fundamentals of rope rescue including mechanical advantage and anchor systems.

The course content meets NFPA 1006, 1021, & 2500 - Standards on Operations and Training for Technical Rescue Incidents - Water Search and Rescue - Technician Level.

PEREQUISTES:

Must have competed an Awareness and Operations course in last 24 months

Must have completed a supervised (preapproved by STARR) 300 meter swim in 12 minutes using any stroke.

Rescue / In land Swimmer

This class is aimed for students rescuing in a surface water and/or inland open water environment such as lakes or ponds of various sizes, as well as flatwater rivers and park waterfronts. The Surface Water Rescue Swimmer course will help rescuers improve their swimming technique, practice victim management and rescue. A strong emphasis is also placed on dealing with victims in the open water and searching for victims in an open water/surface water environment.

This course follows the requirements outlined in NFPA 1006 Chapter 17 (2021 version) and NFPA 1670 Chapter 16 (2022 NFPA 2500 version)

Water Safety & Survival

This class is designed for industrial, construction, oil & gas industry and commercial applications. The course addresses the specific problems encountered when working on, over, or adjacent to water.

This is a performance based (classroom & practical skills) program is estimated at 8 hours. The class is designed to meet and exceed the industrial requirements of OSHA 1926.106. Our program provides the essential knowledge and awareness training to allow your employees to travel and perform their work in small groups on or near coastal waterways and in remote settings safely and effectively.

Vehicle In-Water Rescue

This class is designed for Swift Water / Flood Rescue Technicians to explore and learn skills required to deal with vehicles in moving water. The course looks at vehicle behavior and basic stabilization in water, as well as access techniques and victim extrication. Vehicle hydrology, glass management, anchors, and weight transfer are all addressed in this two-day hands on course.

Officer Water Survival

This class is designed for prepares officers for the unexpected immersion into the water. A key element of this course will be the preparation of participants to become proficient in water survival skills and awareness on how to modify both duty and survival equipment to increase their chances of survival.

This two-day/16-hour course will focus on the basic elements of the Officer Water Survival Course. Participants in this course will be participating in swimming, treading and other drills in uniform, with body armor and a simulated duty belt. This course is physically challenging and is not designed to teach a person how to swim or tread water. In addition, students should be familiar with and have a basic skill to swim using front crawl/free style stroke, breast stroke, side stroke and swimming underwater.

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