Brownstown Fire Department performs record-setting hovercraft flood rescues

Have you ever questioned the importance of hovercraft flight training? If so, you need to read this amazing story of Indiana’s Brownstown Volunteer Fire Department’s recent flood rescues.

In Neoteric’s more than half a century in business, never has a fire department gone immediately from hovercraft flight training to performing a series of successful high-risk floodwater rescues. In fact, our training protocol strongly recommends that each pilot, after training, has a minimum of 5 hours of practice flying their hovercraft before carrying passengers. But when lives are at risk, dedicated first responders sometimes have to break protocol …

Brownstown Fire Department at first considered buying an airboat for their water rescue operations. Then they saw a Neoteric rescue hovercraft in action at FDIC International (Fire Department Instructors Conference) and immediately recognized the advantages of a hovercraft with reverse thrust over an airboat.

Last Saturday, Brownstown Fire Chief Travis McElfrish and three of his first responders came to Neoteric to pick up their new hovercraft and undergo flight training. Here, Chief McElfresh (4th from left) and his crew receive their pilot certifications from Neoteric President Chris Fitzgerald (3rd from left) and Flight Instructor Steve Stafford (5th from left) …    

    

Here’s what happened next, in Chief McElfresh’s own words …

“On June 15th our Fire Department traveled to Neoteric Hovercraft in Terre Haute to pick up our new hovercraft. We spent the day on the Wabash River training to operate our new hovercraft.

“We arrived back at the station around 11:45 that night. Little did we know that only 3 hours later we would be launching our hovercraft on its first rescue, where we were able to successfully rescue a young man stranded in floodwaters caused by the nearly 7 inches of rain we had received in 2 days … while we were still receiving heavy downpours.

“Another call came out at noon on the 16th. We were en route to check a vehicle that was totally submerged in floodwaters. But we were diverted from this call to rescue an elderly gentleman who had become stranded while trying to travel through a flooded rural road. After completing this call we checked the vehicle totally submerged and found it to be unoccupied.

“At 5:30 p.m. we were dispatched again to rescue a woman who attempted to drive through floodwaters and became stranded in her minivan, with water deep enough to reach the seats in the vehicle.

“We successfully made all rescues with no incident and no injuries - thanks to the top notch hovercraft from Neoteric and the outstanding training we received from Steven Stafford and Chris, the owner of Neoteric.”

Here are a couple of photos of Brownstown’s hovercraft in action during their rescues …

We at Neoteric congratulate Chief McElfresh and Brownstown Fire Department’s first responders for their courage, determination and their prompt response in dire circumstances … and for being such fast learners in their flight training course!

Read more about Rescue Hovercraft

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Hovercraft Flight Training