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Firefighters come out of smoke stronger than before
Group of Hall safety workers graduates survival, rescue training
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Sgt. Rhodes Berry with Hall County Fire Services shows how he would use a pair of pliers to repel from a building Wednesday in an emergency situation at the Allen Creek Training Center. Berry recently graduated from the Georgia Smoke Diver course, which places emphasis on the day-to-day challenges firefighters face at structure fires, multiple-alarm fires and multiple fires within a single shift. - photo by Erin O. Smith
In a week filled with fatiguing firefighting training, Sgt. Rhodes Berry said the biggest obstacle came at 5 a.m. “For me, the hardest thing was just waking up every morning and getting up to start the day,” the Hall County firefighter said. Berry and four others graduated this month from Georgia Smoke Diver training, an advanced six-day program focused on “self-survival, firefighter rescue, advanced search and rescue” and other procedures, according to the group. The graduates were Berry, Sgt. Jason Deaton, Sgt. Brian Gregory and firefighters Zach Mills and Austin Morgan.