Second-Floor Victim at a Window: Ladder Rescue Without a Truck Company
You are on the first-arriving engine at 03:40 for a two-story wood-frame apartment building. A woman is at a second-floor front window shouting; smoke is pushing from the window above her head and from a side door on the first floor. The sill of her window is 13 feet above grade, and the ground beneath it is soft landscaping soil. Your apparatus carries a 24-foot extension ladder, a 14-foot roof ladder, and a 10-foot attic ladder; the truck company is eight minutes out. The interior stairway is reached through the side door where smoke is discharging. The woman says her two children are still inside.
1. Which ladder do you choose, where does the butt go, what is the tip height, and how do you secure it on soft soil?
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Ladder: the 24-foot extension. A 14-foot roof ladder will not reach a 13-foot sill with the tip at or above the sill, and the attic ladder is out of the question.
Placement:
- Butt out from the wall roughly one-quarter of the working length - about 5 feet - for a working angle near 75 degrees.
- Tip at, or just below, the sill for a rescue. For a working platform you want 3–5 feet above the surface; for getting a person out of a window, tip level with or slightly below the sill lets you help them over the sill rather than climb past it.
Soft soil: this is the failure mode. Set the butt spurs, then bed the heels into the soil and back them with a ladder pad, a piece of plywood, or a flat board so the feet cannot sink or kick out under load. Two firefighters raise the ladder together and one heels it while the other climbs. Tie the halyard off so the ladder cannot drop if the fly slips.
Ladder choice caveat: if the fly is extended for reach, remember the extended length still has to be heeled and climbed - never extend beyond what the rescue needs.
2. Do you climb before the truck arrives? Identify the specific risks and the minimum preparations before anyone goes up.
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Yes, but not immediately and not unprotected. The woman is conscious and at an open window with smoke above her - the window is a survivable location right now, which buys a short window to prepare properly.
Risks of an unprepared climb:
- A panicked victim will grab the rescuer at the sill; without a ladder belt or harness, both go down.
- The window is a vent point. Opening it or reaching through can pull fire and heat across the victim, and the smoke condition above her tells you the second floor is charged.
- The soft soil can let the ladder kick out under a two-person load.
- No charged line is at the window side yet.
Minimum before climbing: ladder heeled and secured with a second firefighter at the butt; rescuer in full PPE with SCBA and a ladder belt or harness; a charged line positioned at the base for protection and for the interior crew; a plan for how the victim comes down - over the sill onto the ladder rungs, rescuer below and behind, or a ladder-belt descent if she cannot climb.
Sequence: ladder, heel, belt, line, then climb. Not the reverse.
3. You now have a reported woman at a window and two children reportedly inside. How do you allocate a first-alarm crew set among the rescue, the stairway, and the children?
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This is now a multi-victim rescue and the alarm must be upgraded - you cannot cover three tasks with the crew on scene, so request additional alarms immediately, before the tasks are assigned.
Allocation and reasoning:
- Window rescue (two members): the woman is a confirmed, located victim. She is the fastest rescue and it removes her from a window where she may jump. It also converts the window into a controlled vent point and a secondary access.
- Stairway protection (attack line, two members): the interior stair is the only route to the children and is currently the smoke discharge path. The line goes to the stair before anyone goes up it.
- Information (one member, outside): get the children's names, ages, and bedroom locations from the mother once she is down, and find out whether they were in the same room. This converts a vague "two children inside" into a search plan.
Judgment trap: do not strip the window rescue to send the whole crew up the stairs, and do not send an uncharged crew up a smoke-charged stair to chase an unconfirmed report. The confirmed victim gets rescued now while the line is stretched to make the unconfirmed victims reachable.