Spangdahlem firefighters compete in European FFCC: The first races

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Benjamin Wilson
  • 52nd Fighter Wing Public Affairs
BERLIN --  After months of preparation, six firefighters from Spangdahlem Air Base woke up early in Berlin, not to see the sights and relax in this culturally rich city, but to compete in the fourth Berlin Firefighter Combat Challenge.

The first race of the day was Airman Tyler Lamberson, 52nd Civil Engineer Squadron firefighter, as an individual competitor followed by the team relay.

Airman Lamberson competed for the first time in Berlin, and though he didn't finish in the time he would have liked, he still crossed the finish line of the course in a respectable 2 minutes, 35 seconds.

"The run didn't go as planned," Airman Lamberson said. "The biggest challenge here was probably just getting that hoist; it's always been my weakest point. I have little short arms, so it's hard for me"

The Berlin FFCC was a competition consisting of an obstacle course specifically designed to test the physical abilities of a firefighter. Participants demonstrated firefighting skills such as running stairs, hoisting fire hoses and dragging a dummy while wearing full firefighting gear.

Murphy's Law seemed to take effect from the very beginning of the team relay.

At the start of the race, the opposing team had a false start, and not knowing this, Airman 1st Class Mitchel Blackwell, 52nd CES firefighter, took off running, almost reaching the top of the tower. Airman Blackwell later explained he mistook the crowd screaming "stop" as cheering.

Now tired from sprinting up five flights of stairs, the team decided to pull Airman Blackwell from the tower and replace him with Gerd Mueller, 52nd CES fire crew chief.

The Spangdahlem firefighters had not practiced handing off a relay baton before the event and this caused the loss of a few valuable seconds during the relay, however they finished the race in 1:36.

It was announced after the race that the team received a 12-second penalty for leaving six centimeters of space behind the keiser sled, bringing their total time to 1:48.

But the team's time was low enough to beat the opposing team and rank it third place for the day, sending it to the semifinals.

Having run through the course, the team members were confident that they could take on the challenges ahead.

"I think we've had adequate training," said Senior Airman Aaron Anderson, 52nd CES fireman. "I think we had enough time to get our minds right and to get the motions down with a lot of technique, and it is definitely going to show when we are out there running the course."

"I think it's all just executing," Airman Lamberson said. "We have the speed, power and strength, so it all just comes down to the little things."

Getting the little things right was more important than ever on the following day of competition when Team Spangdahlem was set to face Team Berlin-1 and Lion-Power Goettingen, which included members holding gold and bronze medals for the "Toughest Firefighter Alive Challenge."

Though the day's events were coming to a close and the FFCC staff was tearing down the course, Spangdahlem's firefighters were among the last people to leave the location.

The team was busy running the stairs, hoisting the hotel pack from the tower's top level and pounding on the keiser sled to get a feel for all the aspects of the course before turning in early to get some rest for the remaining individual and relay races on the following day.

(Editor's note: This is the second in a series of articles about Spangdahlem firefighters competing in Berlin.)