Buckley firefighters perform water rescue during storms Published June 8, 2012 By Senior Airman Christopher Gross 460th Space Wing Public Affairs BUCKLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- Members of the Buckley Fire Department were dispatched around midnight, June 7, to a water rescue call in Aurora, Colo. where a man was trapped in his van due to flooding caused by severe storms. According to Dennis Hoke, BFD fire chief, the call came in from Sable Altura Fire Department who requested Buckley's heavy rescue team because of the high swift moving water. The team arrived on scene about eight minutes after being called out, and assessed the situation after arriving. The water was approximately three feet high; the van was approximately 100 feet away and sideways. Brandon Elson, BFD firefighter, and another firefighter from SAFD were rigged to a safety rope and worked their way to the van, where they pulled the man from the vehicle giving him a life vest and rigging him up as well and headed back toward the truck. "The whole thing behind water rescue is that going into the water is a last resort," Hoke said. "But in this particular case we didn't have a choice." Elson, who was the one rigged up, said this type of rescue is completely out of the ordinary for their fire department, but that didn't mean they weren't prepared. "I felt very prepared. You're excited and you're amped up and you don't get to do this that often," Elson said. "It's more energy than being scared or anything." The man escaped unharmed.