Brian Gillingham, standing far left, stands with members of his Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue Team, Fairfax Task Force I, during their rescue efforts in Port au Prince, Haiti, where they were stationed for 10 days after the catastrophic earthquake in 2010. Gillingham, who is a 1997 Edison High School graduate and a former member of the Edison First Aid Squad No. 1, also traveled with the team to Japan in March after a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami hit that country. PHOTO COURTESY OF BRIAN GILLINGHAM EDISON — Brian Gillingham, a 1997 graduate of Edison High School and former member of Edison First Aid Squad No. 1, loves what he does: Serving with an international rescue team.
As a member of the International Urban Search and Rescue team of Virginia Task Force I, Gillingham, 32, has conducted search and rescue missions over the past two years in Haiti and Japan after each experienced natural disasters.
Gillingham said he and members of the task force spent 10 days in Port-au-Prince after Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake of 2010. This was Gillingham’s first mission with the group.
“It was a big eye-opener,” he said. “We spent almost two weeks there [arriving] a day or two after the earthquake hit and conducted a lot of rescues.”
Once the task force is called for a mission, the team packs enough food and water to be self sufficient for two weeks.
When an earthquake and tsunami struck Japan in March, the team assembled and flew out of Dulles International Airport to an Air Force base in Japan. On their way, they picked up the only other international search and rescue team located in the United States, which is based out of California. They then traveled to the small coastal town of Ofunato.
Gillingham said the group stayed in a local school.
“There was no power in the gym,” he said, noting the cold temperatures. “It was hard, but we had a job to do.”
Gillingham commended the fire and emergency personnel in Japan because the town where they were assigned had been cleared of debris and bodies. The team stayed in Japan for eight days.
“No rescues had to be made,” he said.
The Edison High School graduate resides in Leesburg, Va. with his wife Alicia. Following his enlistment in the U.S. Navy, Gillingham served aboard the USS Eisenhower as part of its crash and salvage team. It was there that he honed his firefighting sills.
In 2002, Gillingham was honorably discharged from the Navy and applied for a position with the Fairfax County Fire Department. He was subsequently chosen for the Virginia Task Force I.
The task force was established in 1986 as a domestic and international disaster response resource. The specially trained career and volunteer fire and rescue personnel respond after natural or man-made catastrophic events to rescue victims of collapsed structures. The team is comprised of emergency management personnel, planners, physicians and paramedics, and includes specialists in the fields of structural engineering, heavy rigging, collapse rescue, logistics, hazardous materials, communications, canine and technical search.
The task force has partnerships with the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency for domestic response and the United States Agency for International Development/Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance during international missions.