ATV squad will aid rescue efforts

BY LINDSAY LANCASTER

STAFF WRITER

Pike County will have an ATV Rescue Squad on its feet and taking calls sometime around the first of the year, officials say.

Squad chief Brian Cofiell said the idea for a squad that will use ATVs for rescues has been around for a few years, but the squad started coming together around May or June.

Right now, the squad has 30 members from the seven fire departments who started the squad. The fire departments are those of Elkhorn, Sycamore, Ferrells Creek, Feds Creek, Lookout, Marrowbone and Millard.

Once the squad is up and running, it will be opened up to the public for those who don't want to be a member of a volunteer fire department but just want to help with ATV rescues.

“All hands are needed,” Cofiell said. He explained that from the most experienced to the least, everyone can help out.

It will be up to the local fire departments to determine when the ATV rescue squad's assistance is needed.

“We're just merely there to assist the fire departments when they need assistance,” Cofiell said.

At this time, the ATVs that will be used for rescues will be personally owned, but Cofiell said the squad intends to apply for grants and will mostly operate off of donations

In the past, volunteer fire departments needing ATVs for rescue operations would just use their own. But being the huge county that Pike is, sometimes it would take too long to get an ATV on the scene or rescuers would have to go out on foot.

“It was just costing a whole lot of time,” Cofiell said. “Time's a big factor.”

The Pike County Fiscal Court approved the Pike County ATV Rescue Squad's official affiliation with the county at the regularly scheduled fiscal court meeting Monday.

According to the squad's order of affiliation, the squad will serve county citizens by providing trained and equipped squad members who will work on several different types of missions. These missions include cliff or high angle rescue, ground search rescue, recovery of bodies from plane crashes, recovery of lost persons, injured persons rescue, recovery of bodies from structures or buildings, extricate and attend to injured persons and recovery of bodies from vehicle and/or off road accidents.

In addition, the squad will assist upon request with rescue from boating accidents, bomb search and evacuation of factories and schools, cave rescue or recovery, still, swift, or low head dam water rescue recovery and electrical emergency rescue or recovery.

However, according to the order, the rescue squad will not respond to missions such as searching for persons sought for criminal acts or evidence recovery of search when related to criminal acts.

According to Doug Tackett, Pike County Emergency Management's director, the squad is currently working on some paperwork, a mission statement and a few other things, but should be ready to start in the next few weeks.

Staff writer Lindsay Lancaster can be reached via e-mail at llancaster@news-expressky.com.