The Monday night drill on August 19 covered techniques for making the best of a truly bad situation. The subject was ladder bail outs. Ladder bails are used as a last resort to escape a burning room when all other avenues and techniques of escape are unavailable and the situation has become literally life or death.

The process requires that a ladder be placed at the base of a window of a room in which the firefighter is located. The ladder must be placed just below the sill and all the glass must be cleared from the frame, especially on the bottom. The trapped firefighter exits head first onto the ladder to get out of the burning room. At this point the member can crawl down the ladder until the legs are free of the window.

Now the member can stay inverted and slide down to the ground if near. The member can also hook one arm around a rung and grab a lower rung with the other, swinging around to get the feet on a lower rung and either climb or slide the beams to the ground. If there are more than one member using this avenue of escape, the fastest descent option is best as time will be exceedingly short.

We hope to never be in the position of needing this skill, but it's good to know there are options in trying to escape death or serious injury.