Agenda item

The Deputy Chief Fire Officer presented the report. 

In March 2021, the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) published a position statement entitled “Rescues of submerged casualties” which included the following:

“The HSE have indicated that not preparing for a foreseeable risk, including rescues of submerged casualties, is unacceptable. Fire and rescue services may face action if they are found to be exposing their staff to a situation that involves an intervention to save a submerged casualty. Operational discretion is not seen as applicable in circumstances that require actions not supported by legislation, policy and procedure, when there is evidence to support this is foreseeable.”

NFCC position: “Unless services are able to address the identified gap in the required resources, equipment, training, and the actions that are required to remain compliant with legislation, when attending an incident involving a casualty that is submerged – All rescues of a submerged casualty should be taken from the land, the surface of the water or by personnel in the water maintaining the correct levels of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). Rescuers should be competent to risk assess and carry out rescues and should maintain the correct levels of PPE. Operational discretion should not be used to remove PPE, enter confined spaces underwater or act outside of service policy to go underwater.

There may be specific sub-surface situations that can be controlled to allow a rescue attempt. These situations will usually be when the casualty is visible and submerged in shallow water. The NFCC will consider future National Operational Learning cases but are unlikely to re-evaluate existing guidance unless they include new evidence, alternative safe systems of work or equipment, or other technical solutions that are deemed as a potential improvement in this matter.”

Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service (LFRS) Response

LFRS sought to minimise the impact of this necessary operational restriction through investment in Swift Water Rescue Technician (SRT) equipment such as reach poles. This only went a short way in closing the capability gap that existed for submerged casualties.

Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs)

A ROV normally involved a small submersible that housed a battery, propellers, and a camera with high powered lighting. It was connected to the land via a tether cable which carried the command wire. The controller was held by the pilot on the bankside.

In order to fully close this gap, the Drone Team secured a small amount of investment from the Research and Development group (c.£3,000) for an underwater ROV in order to conduct feasibility trials, to prove concept.  The purpose of its use was to assess its potential for life saving operations and to identify a list of necessary requirements for a fully capable unit. According to national guidance, as set out in the report, a recently submerged person could present a viable rescue for up to 90 minutes.  During that time Fire and Rescue Services and other Blue Light responding partners must be seen to be responding or there was a likelihood that others would intervene.

Research Findings

The LFRS ROV, manufactured by FiFish, was procured for less than £3k, but was capable of demonstrating most of the basic functions of the more expensive industrial ROVs. Importantly it had a claw which could be operated by the pilot.

In order to get a wider understanding, LFRS attended a ROV expo in London and invited two of the largest manufacturers – FiFish and Deeptrekker to demonstrate a number of their ROV models at Fleetwood Campus.

In order to improve LFRS’ understanding of Sound Navigation and Ranging (SONAR) the team also visited Blueprint Subsea in Ulverston who allowed LFRS pilots to use SONAR equipped ROVs in Lake Windermere. The company was very helpful and provided a number of recovery videos to the team to show how casualties were located in real life.

All of the models investigated had a long battery life in excess of 90 minutes. Some were more rugged than others, but several important requirements were identified beyond the anticipated operational requirements. These were:

Vision

The degree of detritus in the water severely limited normal camera vision, and high-powered lighting (an absolute necessity at night) could further exacerbate rather than solve this problem, similar to using high beam headlights in the fog. During trials the ROV was able to locate a child dummy casualty at the bottom of Rivington Reservoir in good, clear and still water. It was noted though as the operation went on that the propellers quickly stirred up sediment and vision became poor. This was a conceivable scenario for rescues even in excellent conditions.  Search was therefore very difficult with normal cameras either day or night.

Requirement: An ROV requires SONAR in order to search and ‘see’ through the water. SONAR is particularly valuable in identifying air voids in the water created by recently submerged casualties.

Positioning

ROVs cannot access GPS underwater. It was possible however, to know the depth via a barometer and the aspect (the direction the ROV is facing) via a compass. The tether cable was buoyant so it was feasible to get an approximate location of the ROV on a straight run underwater from shore. An available option was to surface the ROV which was not ideal practice once a casualty had been located.

Requirement: An underwater positioning system is required in order to gain precise location data for a casualty. This has a number of other benefits in that the ROV calculates where it is and can stabilise this position accurately against water flows. The positioning system can enable systematic search patterns to be employed by operators (i.e., we know exactly where the ROV has been and where it is going).

Casualty Recovery to Surface

No easily transportable ROV can bring a submerged casualty to the surface using just power from propellers. This idea was quickly dismissed during trials. A number of factors can influence the difficulty in raising a person, including size, weight, clothing, buoyancy and water current. The team looked into the feasibility of attaching and operating items such as air lifting bags. Attaching recovery systems was very difficult with the claw operating in good visibility and no current. The only realistic chance of success was to attach the ROV onto the casualty (or more likely their clothing) using an interlocking claw to allow proper grasp. This was confirmed as being in use for body recovery in other parts of the world. A manual hauling from above/alongside via the tether cable would then be required.

This ‘grab and retrieve’ method was achieved during the trials at Fleetwood Nautical Campus with a higher rated ROV model (the current  LFRS £3k ROV did not have sufficient strength in claw or tether cable). It must be noted that moving a casualty was easier from land (i.e., at a low angle) rather than from directly above which meant lifting the weight of the casualty and the ROV. Much of the recovery involved getting momentum established in the first instance. It was likely that a recently submerged casualty would be more buoyant than the weights/dummies used in trials.

Requirement: An ROV must have a sufficiently strong claw grasp & tether cable in order to raise a submerged casualty by manual means from bankside/boat.

Operation

Operating a ROV in a 3D ‘blind’ environment such as murky water was a challenging proposition. The drone pilots were used to operating without sight of an aerial drone but the ROV brought another dimension in that it was able to rotate vertically to face upwards or downwards. Some  ROVs such as the FiFish could fully rotate in all three directions and on a number of occasions the ROV was upside down without the pilot being aware of its aspect. Other ROVs were demonstrated however, that stayed level with the surface and the camera rotated on a gimbal much like an aerial drone. This was far more controllable for the pilot and much more suitable for systematic searches.

Requirement: The ROV needs to have a simple operation method which eliminates the ability for the ROV to rotate vertically, giving the ability to carry out systematic searches.

Control

ROVs were provided with a controller for the pilot to operate. In the case of the LFRS FiFish ROV, a simple controller was provided and a smart phone was used to see the camera feed via an app connected by wi-fi. The controller’s simplicity added to pilot confusion as many of the commands and settings were located on an app instead. The use of a smartphone to operate the ROV was understandable due to its costs, but the app often required a reset during operations. LFRS had learned this limitation already with drones and thus used standalone, manufacturer-built controllers for its operational drones. In trialling SONAR, it was noted that some manufacturers did not integrate the sonar output into the controller, and a laptop or similar device was also required.

Requirement: The ROV needs to be provided with a manufacturers specific controller which integrates all of its functions and imagery.

Recommendation

LFRS had deployed a ROV three times to incidents (as at 11/2022) over the 2022 summer period in order to assist rescue teams in recovering casualties from under the water. All three incidents demonstrated the value in deploying the ROV. Unfortunately, these incidents also demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the existing subsurface rescue. In fact, a submerged casualty was located within seconds of the first ever ROV deployment despite extensive searches already having taken place by crews and other agencies.

In order to deliver a realistic search and casualty recovery capability Fire and Rescue Services would need to deploy a ROV currently costing in the region of £70-80k. The complex nature of operations would require a significant investment in training for SRT or boat crews, but much less so with the Drone Pilots who had immediately transferable skills. The ability for the ROV to search for objects in addition to casualties should not be overlooked in this regard.

Therefore, the recommendation was for the Combined Fire Authority to support the procurement of a higher capability subsurface ROV, thereby enabling the Service to become the first nationally to have improved underwater body location and potential rescue capability.

An investment of around £80,000 was anticipated which would be funded from the existing innovation budget and be built in to the capital programme, if approved. The deployment of this would place additional pressures on the Drone Teams  revenue budget, which was currently overspent. A review of its deployment was currently underway to ensure it was only mobilised where required.

County Councillor O’Toole had been impressed at a demonstration of the drones recently at the Strategy Day.  He commented that during his tenure of office, the Authority ensured its firefighters had the best equipment and he considered the underwater drone to be essential.

County Councillor Woollam queried who would be trained to use the underwater drone.  In response the Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised that the Service had an on-call drone team which operated the aerial drone.  They were responsible for doing the feasibility trials for the underwater drone and had been working with the manufacturing company to undertake further trials.  It would be that team which would deploy the underwater drone to approximately 10 – 20 incidents per year.

County Councillor S Rigby queried how the overspent budget (as detailed on page 34 of the agenda pack) would be managed.  In response, the Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised that the overspend related to the aerial drone and the development of the new Drone Team. Previously the deployment of the aerial drone was by full time officers who also carried out fire investigations.  Due to the number of deployments the workload was too much therefore a separate team was set up.  As the aerial drone was new and innovative everyone requested it.  The drone team were now managing a process to ensure it was only deployed where it could add value / benefit. 

Councillor Williams queried if other Fire and Rescue Services were also interested in procuring underwater drones, whether there was the potential for a national preferred supplier which would bring financial benefits.  In response, the Deputy Chief Fire Officer advised that the Service’s Drone Manager chaired the NFCC National Tactical Group and  Lancashire was leading the way regarding the use of aerial drones.  To move to underwater capability provided an additional opportunity to do something others were not doing.  Alternative suppliers had been considered and there had been a lot of interest in the underwater drone from other Fire and Rescue Services however, not all were in a position where they could currently invest.

RESOLVED: - That a high-specification Remotely Operated Vehicle be procured from the innovation budget at a cost of circa £80,000 and this be built into the capital programme.