Company News

D2000 Instructors Support Rescue on Arizona’s Mount Graham
After falling off a rock face, a fourteen-year-old Boy Scout lay unconscious with internal injuries in a remote section of the Pinaleno Mountains in southeast Arizona.

“There’s a sliding rock up there with smooth, water-covered moss,” according to Lary Morton, D2000 Instructor and volunteer with the county search and rescue team. “The kids slide down it, and I think this time the patient just got sideways and started tumbling out of control. He got smacked up pretty bad.”

Other scouts removed the unconscious boy from the creek, but according to Morton, “when we got there he was in pretty bad shape.”

First on the scene was Mike Gojkovich, a part time D2000 instructor and AirEvac EMT. Mike stabilized the patient and administered in IV.

Lary and Greg Arbizo, another D2000 instructor, were airlifted to the top of the mountain where they were met by one of the Boy Scout leaders. “He told us it was a three mile hike down, but it’d feel like ten miles coming back up,” Lary said. “That was some rugged terrain.”

“We got him stabilized and placed him in a Stokes basket,” Greg Arbizo explained. “Then he had to move him quite a ways until we could find a spot where we were out from under the trees.”

At this point the helicopter was brought in to perform a short haul. This involved connecting the patient and an attendant to the hovering helicopter and lifting them to a landing zone. Here the patient could be transferred inside for evacuation to the hospital.

The youth suffered a variety of internal injuries but was expected to make a full recovery.

“We didn’t do this rescue by ourselves,” according to Frank Maldonado, another D2000 instructor who helped stabilize the patient. “There were a lot of other people involved including members of the Cochise and Graham County Search and Rescue Teams, Arizona Department of Public Safety, and other members of the Freeport McMoRan Technical Rescue Team.”

D2000 Develops Mid-west Presence

Over the last few months we have been fortunate to begin working with Jim Theodore, who has over thirty years of experience as a firefighter and trainer. Jim is located in Northern Minnesota's Iron Range, a landscape dominated by open-pit mines set amid the forests and lakes.

"D2000's rescue and safety programs have been very-well received in this region," according to Jim Theodore, "and there's a huge need for Mastery-level training."

Working through the Mesabi Range Community and Technical College's Fire Training Program, a number of mine employees and contractor's have been trained in the areas of confined space and fall protection rescue. Additional classes have been scheduled.

"We're glad to be working with Mr. Theodore,' said James Johnson, D2000 CEO. "He has excellent credentials and real committment to safety." In addition to providing rescue instruction, D2000 can now also provide standby rescue to organizations in the area.

Rescue Training at the Titan Missile Museum
D2000 is again offering an intensive four-day Industrial Rescue Team Leader program in a missile museum. "It's a great place to train," according to Greg Arbizo, Lead Rescue Instructor. "There are a wide range of scenarios we can set up in the tunnels, silos and vaults."

The focus of the program will be to provide the students with the skills and resources needed to provide initial and refresher training to their rescue teams.

(Industrial rescue includes combines confined space, fall protection and rescue from other elevated areas.)

The training is scheduled to be held February 3 - 6 at the Titan Missile Museum, which is about 20 miles south of Tucson, Arizona.

Students will receive a complete set of training materials (Rescue Leader’s Guide and PowerPoint, and Rescue Student Workbook).

Cost will be $995 per student.

OSHA Reaches Out To Businesses
OSHA recently announced that it had mailed out 14,000 letter to employers in Federal OSHA states informing them that their illness and injury rates were above average and suggesting that they may want to take steps to address these issues. As the letter says, "Last year, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) surveyed employers to identify the workplaces with the highest Days Away from work, Restricted, or Transferred (DART) rates. Your establishment was one of those identified as having a DART rate higher than most other businesses in this country."

Businesses who received the letters had 6.5 (or more) serious injuries or illnesses per 100 full-time workers in 2003. The national average is 2.6.

Signed by Jonathan Snare, the Acting Assistant Secretary, the letter goes on to say, "OSHA recognizes that your elevated DART rate does not necessarily indicate a lack of interest in safety and health. Whatever the cause, a high rate is costly to your company in both personal and financial terms." The letter then lists steps which the employer may want to take to address these issues. Businesses who received the letters are not neccesarily targetted for inspections.

To us, this seems like a good way to draw the companies' attention to health and safety concerns, and it wouldn't be fair to say that the companies who received the letters have no regard for worker safety.

The 14,000 businesses who received the letters were listed in a database file which can be downloaded at: www.osha.gov/as/opa/foia/hot_11.html

Version 3 Confined Space Leader's Guide Released

Following months of development, D2000 is proud to release Version 3 of the Confined Space Leader's Guide.

Trainers who are familiar with previous versions of this program will notice a number of improvements. For example in the Entrant/Attendant program, trainers can expect to find:

o More information on proper ventilation practices.

o An added section dealing with welding in confined spaces.

o Increased use of short videos.

o Added information on heat exposure.

o Short progress checks (quizzes) after each module to review key points.

"Other improvements," according to the program's developer, and D2000 CEO, Jim Johnson, "include a cleaner look and a more logical learning path." In others words, some of the topics have been re-ordered to better match the students' learning needs.

"Where it made sense we wanted to present these topics in the same order that students would encounter them in the field," according to Mr. Johnson. "This tends to improve retention of the key points."

Version 2 workbooks and CDs will still be avialable.

We will be contacting students who have completed D2000's Confined Space Train the Trainer within the last twelve months to offer them a low-cost upgrade.