John P. O'Connell
Rescue Company 3
Fire Department City of New York
CRSTraining@aol.com

• Member of the FDNY for over 26 years, assigned to the departments heavy technical and collapse Rescue Company No. 3 for over 18 years.
• Previously served in Engine 257 Canarsie, Brooklyn for one year and Hook & Ladder 102 in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn for 7 years.
• John has just recently retired from the Fire Department of the City of New York. When John retired not only was he the senior man of Rescue 3 for 5 years he retired as the senior firefighter in the FDNY's Special Operations Command.
• Member of the North Bellmore N.Y. volunteer fire department for 5 years
• New York State certified instructor, advanced level # 0793- 3073b
• Adjunct instructor, N.Y.S. Academy of Fire Science
• Currently a certified state fire instructor for the state Office of Fire Prevention and Control.
• Certified by the State of New York to teach Trench Rescue, Confined Space Rescue, Rope Rescue, Rescue Shoring Operations, all phases of Structural Collapse Rescue, Ice Rescue, as well as numerous firefighting courses
• New York City Fire Department division of training, certified instructor, lead instructor, structural collapse rescue operations, trench rescue, rigging, vehicle extrication and all disciplines of US&R
• Editorial advisory board member, Fire Engineering magazine
• Contributing editor, Fire Engineering magazine
• Lead H.O.T. coordinator FDIC, FDIC East, FDIC West
• Member of FDIC advisory staff
• Author of 34 articles articles on structural collapse related topics in several trade journals
• Published in four foreign languages
• Speaker at the 1994 & 1996 Firehouse Expo, Baltimore, MD.
• Speaker at the 1996 Commonwealth of Virginia Fire Chiefs Conference
• Speaker at the 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 FDIC Conference Indianapolis Indianna
• Lead H.O.T. instructor for collapse rescue - FDIC East and West, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004
• Speaker at the 2000, 2001, 2002 FDIC West conference
• Speaker at the 1997, 2001 Disaster Relief Conference, Tokyo, Japan
• Consultant to Paratech Inc. manufacturers of rescue tools and equipment
• Consultant to NASAR Inc. in structural collapse operations
• Wrote and taught the FDNY'S Trench Rescue Program and the Collapse Rescue Shoring, Void Search, and Concrete Cutting Operations curriculum.
• Involved in the development, writing and teaching of the FDNY'S Collapse Rescue curriculum.
• Member of the Technical Rescue Development Committee for the State of New York
• Group leader of the Building Collapse and Trench Rescue Development Committee for the State of New York
• Principle member of the NFPA Technical Committee on Technical Rescue 1670
• Task Group Leader for the Structural Collapse Section of NFPA 1670 for the past 7 years
• Former Member of the FEMA US&R NEW YORK Task Force 1
• Currently a Rescue Team Manager FOR NYTF-1
• NYTF-1 Task Force Leader, 2001- 2004
• Currently a Rescue Team Manager FOR IN-TF-1
• Member of the FEMA US&R Incident Support Team, for 12 years, has served on numerous deployments as shoring officer, US&R specialist, situation unit leader, transportation unit leader, DeMob unit leader, deputy ops chief and operations chief
• Member of the FEMA US&R INCIDENT SUPPORT TEAM, has served on numerous deployments as shoring officer, US&R specialist, situation unit leader, deputy ops chief and operations chief
• Member of the FEMA US&R committee for Shoring Criteria
• Member of the FEMA US&R Development cadre for Rescue Specialist Training
• Lead Shoring Instructor for FEMA US&R Rescue Specialist Training
• Shoring operations officer, FEMA incident support team, the Oklahoma city bombing & the Humberto Vidal collapse, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
• Operated at both the World Trade Center bombing as well as several dozen collapses throughout the New York metropolitan area
• IN CHARGE OF ALL UNDERGROUND AND CONFINED SPACE PENETRATIONS AT THE 9-11 WTC INCIDENT.
• Was the technical advisor to the incident commander at the WORLD TRADE CENTER COLLAPSE
• FDNY representative to the Civilian Contractors during the WTC Incident
• President of Collapse Rescue Systems Inc. a consulting and training organization dealing primarily in the field of technical rescue
• President of Technical Rescue Canada, Inc.
• >JOHN HAS CONDUCTED TRAINING IN OVER THIRTY FIVE STATES AS WELL AS CHINA, the MIDDLE EAST, JAPAN & CANADA
• Helped Design and develop Technical Rescue Props for Several Fire Departments around the Country. We have collapsed over 30 different buildings for use with US&R training around the country.

ACTUAL EXPERIENCE
These are a few of the incidents John has responded too and operated at in the last 15 years. These are some of the more memorable ones he has responded too, John also has been involved in shoring operations with numerous other structures which have collapsed, partially collapsed or where in danger of collapsing throughout his career.

• Oklahoma City Bombing, 14 days, 4-95. Was appointed the Rescue Shoring Officer, in charge of all shoring constructed by rescue workers in the building.
• World Trade Center, 3 days. Responded with Rescue 3 and the collapse rig, searched the collapsed subbasements for two days. Removed concrete sections in danger of further collapse; one day
• Parking Garage Collapse; Bronx, 1 day, 10-97. Shored up and removed tractor trailer which collapsed from first floor into ground level.
• Parking Garage Collapse; Queens, 2 days, 3-98. Searched collapsed floor area and numerous cars as overloaded dump truck caused upper floor to collapse to lower floor.
• Commercial building Collapse; 31st Manhattan, 2 days, 10-88. Rescued two people trapped in major debris when building improperly renovated collapsed
• Steam Explosion and collapse; Manhattan, 1 day, 8-89
• Hurricane Georges, 7 days, 10-98
• Hurricane Charley, 12 days, 8-04. Searched for 4 days; numerous destroyed buildings and extensive heavy damage throughout area
• Hurricane Ivan, 14 days, 9-04. Searched numerous areas in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.
• Hurricane Jeanne, 4 days, 9-04. Searched destroyed homes in Florida, Hurricane Isabel, 6 days, 9-03
• Concrete Slab collapse; Bronx, 1 day, 5-90. Large slab collapse where homeless people were living under slab outcrop. Removed one victim and rescued second victim.
• World Trade Center, 9-11-01, 23 weeks. I was assigned as technical advisor to the incident commander; liaison to the FEMA teams, represented the FDNY at all contractor meetings. I was also in charge of all void entries into and under the north and south towers.
• Retaining wall collapse; Bronx, 1 day, 3-91. Rear of 6 story tenement collapsed into building, shore up 50 ft of wall.
• Gas explosion; Brooklyn, plumbing supply store, 1 day, 5-92. Major gas explosion, heavy fire and collapse. Rescue one worker, and searched entire building while fire extinguishment was being conducted.
• Gas explosion; Brooklyn two 3 story private homes, 1 day, 4-95. Removed two victims from remains of home and searched debris
• Gas explosion; Brooklyn 3; 3 story tenements, 1 day, 10-03
• 6 story building collapse; Brooklyn, 1 day, 3-95. Searched several floors and basement; shore up first floor and extricated victim from second floor bedroom area.
• 5 story building collapse; Manhattan, 1 day, 9-98. Searched and removed several victims from debris and shored up one floor
• Crane collapse; Queens, 1 day, 5-02. Shored up building and stabilized crane
• 3 story building collapse; Bronx, 1 day, 4-00. Rescued elderly woman trapped in basement when 1st floor collapsed into basement.
• Trench rescue; Manhattan, 1 day, 3-02. One workman trapped when side of trench caved in, personally rescued victim
• Trench rescue; Brooklyn, 1 day, 7-98. Two workers trapped in total cave in of 8' deep trench, one rescued alive
• Trench rescue; Queens, 1 day, 5-97. Worker trapped up to the waste, rescued while shoring was completed.
• Building collapse; Brooklyn, 1 day, 4-98. Shored up collapsing first floor while rescue of workmen was being preformed on the floor above.
• Car into building; Bronx, 1 day, 2-99. Car knocked down wall of building, searched and erected shoring.
• Car into building; Brooklyn, 1 day, 4-00. Shored up front of 3 story building
• Car into building; Manhattan, 1 day, 5-96. Shored up interior of structure when storefront and bearing column were knocked out
• Car into house; Bronx, 1 day, 5-98. Shored up front of house while victim was being extricated from auto
• Scaffold collapse: Manhattan, 4 days, 3-00. High rise under construction had elevator an scaffold collapse into structure across the street, killing two people. Removed victims and sections of scaffold off both structures.
• Building collapse: Manhattan, 1 day, 8-03. Shored up front of 6 story tenement under renovation which collapsed and killed one workmen.
• Gas Explosion; Puerto Rico, 7 days, 9-99. Deployed by FEMA, assigned shoring officer and Branch Director supervised all shoring operations and search operations below grade. 12 victims removed
• Shored up second story of 6 story tenement when car jumped fence, 1 day, 4-04
• Searched collapsed home Staten Island due to foundation failure, 1 day, 6-04

NOTE; John is the only person in the entire FEMA US&R System that has responded to the OK City bombing, the Puerto Rico gas explosion, and Both World Trade Center Bombings.