Fire Personnel Plunge Into Tryouts for Elite Swift Water Rescue Team

When brush fire season ends and there’s no more need for Los Angeles Fire Department helicopter pilot Rick Wheeler to douse hot spots, the 19-year veteran says, his job gets a little slow.

So this winter he hopes to get into the swim of things as a member of the department’s Swift Water Rescue Team, which tries to pluck people out of the Los Angeles River or other channels when they flow fast and treacherous after winter rains.

And if this year’s El Nino-induced storms turn out to be half as heavy as predicted, the rescue team is going to be one busy group.

Twelve members of the Fire Department, from firefighters to captains, tried out for the elite 48-member unit Monday and Tuesday in the waters of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in Sylmar. Although there are no immediate openings, there may be some later in the season as members are injured or take other assignments, officials said.

“I thought it might be busy this year, so I thought it would be a good time to try out,” said Wheeler, 40. The exam tests swimming skills, from basic strokes to defensive positions. Firefighters have to demonstrate how they would rescue a combative victim, panicked and flailing in the water, played by a member of the rescue squad.

Applicants must swim into and out of an eddy and negotiate a “strainer”--in real life, usually a fallen tree, chain-link fence or other debris. During the test it was two pieces of pipe fastened with rope to a bridge over the aqueduct.

On Monday, as the mercury soared into the high 90s, firefighters donned wetsuits, life jackets and helmets. Capt. Charles Clark dived in and swam ferociously toward the eddy, appearing almost to get sucked under at one point. He backstroked from one side of the aqueduct to the other, breathing hard from the effort.

The swift water can create hundreds of pounds of pressure on a swimmer’s legs, and if he or she does not adopt a defensive position--swimming with legs on the surface--the legs can easily become tangled in submerged debris, pulling the person under.

The concrete-lined aqueduct is supposed to simulate the concrete-lined Los Angeles River. But the river’s murky water sometimes flows at 35 mph, compared to the aqueduct’s estimated 10 mph.

The water rescue team was formed in 1992 after Adam Bischoff, 15, was swept away in the river’s fast-moving waters. Dozens of firefighters, police officers and motorists threw ropes and flotation devices to him, but the Woodland Hills teenager could not grab them.

His videotaped death struggle, shown on TV news shows, set off a public outcry over the dangers of the river in the rainy season.

Dennis Roach, 35, a firefighter trying out for the rescue team this week, said Adam’s death “moved me just as much as everyone else.” He added that the tragedy makes him think of possibly losing his own twin sons, now 2 1/2.

But authorities say a lot has changed since 1992. Tryouts are held every year for the rescue team, which trains an average of eight hours a month.

The team members, Los Angeles and Culver City firefighters and county lifeguards, are usually scattered about the city on other assignments. In times of heavy rain, they deploy into four groups spread out from the river’s headwaters in the San Fernando Valley to where it empties into Los Angeles Harbor, said Dan Arnold, a fire engineer and coordinator of the team.

There is also new equipment available, from specialized suits to protect rescue members from debris and pollution to motorized skis with rescue baskets on the back. Fire engines now carry flotation devices, said Capt. Jack Wise, also a coordinator for the team.

“Our ability to rescue has increased tremendously,” Wise said, but he added that the task is still not easy.

River rescues call for a whole new set of skills for firefighters, Clark said. “Fires are a lot more predictable. You know exactly what is going to happen five minutes from now, 10 minutes from now. Rivers are so dynamic. The situation changes because the victim is in a different place.”