Firefighters rescue survivor from rubble in dramatic drill

Published

May 6, 2026 6:03 pm

In this article

A collapsed parking garage. A survivor trapped under tons of concrete. No way in. No way out. Firefighters arrive on scene. The clock is ticking.

Portland Fire & Rescue conducted a training drill last month to prepare for this dramatic scenario, teaming up with trauma surgeons at Oregon Health and Science University and an ambulance crew from American Medical Response. The drill, hosted at Portland Fire's training campus in NE Portland, required the teams to work in close coordination, using all their skill and ingenuity to perform a successful rescue.

One rescuer crawled through a pipe to reach the trapped survivor. However, the pipe was too narrow to use as an escape route. Rescuers use demolition saws to cut a hole in a slab of concrete to create an escape hatch for a survivor in this training drill.

Portland Fire's technical rescue team arrived at the simulation to find a three-level underground parking garage that had collapsed, trapping an individual in a pocket of space deep inside. The entrance was blocked by tons of concrete rubble.

One crew worked to tunnel through the debris to gain access, navigating a tortuous passage in total darkness. In the meantime, another crew attempted a different approach: they crawled through a harrowing section of 24-inch drainage pipe. This proved successful: a firefighter reached the survivor and began life support.

Some minutes later, the first crew cleared a ragged, twisty pathway through the rubble, hoping to create a viable exit route.

Unfortunately, this pathway was too constricted to safely remove the injured survivor. So a crew on the surface set to work sawing through a concrete slab to cut an escape hatch in the roof of the garage -- a dusty, ear-splitting task.

Then came difficult news. The survivor's leg was pinned by a fallen beam. There was no way to get it loose in time. Firefighters called in a trauma team from OHSU to perform a field amputation while they worked to set up a winch to hoist the survivor out. Throughout the exercise, the manikin, a remote-control, high-tech model from OHSU, displayed erratic vital signs, forcing the medic firefighters under the rubble to keep adjusting their lifesaving techniques.

Amid clouds of dust and the scream of concrete saws, an OHSU trauma surgeon crawled into the structure and amputated the survivor's leg just below the knee, finally freeing them from entrapment. The team hoisted them through the escape hatch to the surface and transferred them to the ambulance team, who gave them blood, just as they would in real life.

"This was an amazing drill," said Rick Graves, public information officer for Portland Fire & Rescue. "A field exercise like this is an intense, highly charged operation that demands outstanding teamwork to be successful. This is how Portland firefighters - and medical teams - stay sharp, train with our partners, and prepare for scenarios we hope we never see."