On Wednesday August 12,^th the Shawnee Heights Fire District was presented with a training aid to assist with search and rescue training in the department.   Rylee Boyd, a member of Girl Scout Troop 3105 in Berryton, constructed the aid as part of her Gold Award project.  The project, “Necessity is the Mother of Invention” involves ways to recycle, reuse or repurpose old or discarded materials to give them a new useful purpose. It involves thinking out of the box to use items you have on hand to make something you may need but cannot afford to buy.

The Gold Award is the highest award available in the Girl Scouts. Rylee has been working on her Gold Award for over a year.As part of her project she constructed a training aid, known as a hose dummy, for the Fire District. The aid is made of old unserviceable fire hose, zip ties, and duct tape. She contacted Jerred Hammond of the Topeka Fire Department and former member of SHFD to come up with a design.  Hose dummies provide a valuable service in the training of firefighters when conducting rescue type of scenarios because they are inexpensive, durable, and replaceable if they are damaged. They can be used in situations where using a live victim would be dangerous.

Training Chief Laramie McPherson accepted the training aid along with Lt. Jessica Shrewbury at Station 23.  When asked to give it a name, Rlyee dubbed it ZT (short for zip tie) because so many zip ties were used to construct the aid.  We want to thank Rylee for her efforts and wish her the best on completion of her Gold Award.