First Response:
Rescue documentary filmed on Wabash River

Tribune-Star, Terre Haute, Indiana USA
17 September 2009
by Lisa Trigg

Rescued: The actor victim of a boating accident on the Wabash River is rescued by pilot Steven Stafford and Tad Skylar Agoglia during the making of a documentary on the Wabash River on Thursday. Tribune-Star photo/Bob Poynter

Hovercraft used made in Terre Haute

In the wake of a natural disaster or other emergencies, stunned communities leaders can have a hard time knowing in which direction to turn to receive help.

The phones probably don’t work. Debris is everywhere, and the roads are blocked. Finding emergency shelter, food and medical care for displaced residents is a huge task.

Just ask anyone who dealt with disaster during the June 2008 flooding across the Wabash Valley and other communities in southern Indiana. In such times, people often look not necessarily for a miracle to make things right, but for valuable help from someone who arrives at the right time, with the right equipment and for the right purpose.

For many folks, that someone is Tad Skylar Agoglia, a 33-year-old New York native who has turned his disaster recovery business into the First Response Team of America, based in Knoxville., Tenn.

And one key piece of equipment that his team brings in response to disasters is made in Terre Haute by an innovative light hovercraft manufacturer.

Agoglia and a documentary production team from Austin, Texas, are visiting Terre Haute to film footage of how the team’s new Neoteric Hovercraft will help reach more people in disaster situations that cannot be reached by boat, aircraft or land vehicle.

“What’s unique in disaster areas is that there are no boat ramps,” Agoglia told the Tribune-Star on the sunny, breezy banks of the Wabash River. “We have to go over asphalt with debris, or in heavy currents, and this boat will fly sideways and will float anywhere.”

Victim: An actor holds onto a log in the Wabash River on Thursday as film crews make a documentary film on the First Response Team of America’s hovercraft operations. Tribune-Star/Bob Poynter

On Thursday, members of Agoglia’s response team, a film crew, Chris Fitzgerald of Neoteric Hovercraft and other supporters converged on Fairbanks Park and the Wabash River to film the mock rescue of a person trapped in a logjam when a small boat overturns.

“We are never the hot shots,” Agoglia said during filming as he discussed his company’s purpose with the crew of an Air Evac emergency medical helicopter. “We come into your community and ask what you need.”

Filming: A film crew works with members of the First Response Team of America and a medical flight crew in the making of a documentary film Thursday afternoon. Tribune-Star/Bob Poynter

Agoglia first got into the business of disaster by doing clean-up. With a crane and heavy equipment, his company Disaster Recovery Solutions would move in to remove debris and clear sites for rebuilding. They were called into help with the Hurricane Katrina recovery, but in 2007, his company made a shift away from commercial success to community success.

“Our last job was in 2007,” Agoglia said. “Since then, it’s been purely humanitarian work, responding where we’re needed.”

Through his government contract work, Agoglia saw that it can take months before the correct paperwork is signed to begin clean-up. Even rescue work can be delayed by red tape.

“But when I began to see the needs that existed on Day 1, or in the first week, I just developed a team to respond,” he explained. “There is no customer for this work. There is no government work.”

One way that his team knows where to respond is by tracking storm systems throughout the country.

“We watch weather patterns,” he said. “We identify storms that are significant and will destroy communities. If we see there's a need, we will respond.”

One of the first things that First Response Team does is open roads blocked by debris so that essential services can reach the devastated area. A tornado or flood creates a lot of debris, and water may not always be deep, but there are usually other obstacles below the surface that will not allow for safe passage of a boat.

The company also brings in its own generators, and has provided power for hospitals and nursing homes. They have pumped out the basements of flooded hospitals and set up satellite links to enable communication for emergency crews until power and phone service can be restored. They even scout disaster areas on dirt bikes looking for places to help.

Team leader: Tad Skylar Agoglia, founder of First Response Team of America, was in Terre Haute with film crews Thursday to document the team’s hovercraft rescue operations. Tribune-Star/Bob Poynter

Agoglia modestly declines accolades for the good stewardship his company provides. He was honored by CNN as a Top Ten Hero “Community Crusader” in 2008.

“I grew up in a home with parents who taught me to always give when you can, and to help when you can,” he said. “I’m sharing my resources with the world.”

Indeed, he shares about $1 million in equipment with the communities that are assisted. That’s no small sacrifice for a young man who once attended college and seminary with the intentions of becoming a priest. As he went through his 20s and built up his business, he also had plans to build a vineyard. But he found more fulfillment in helping others than in his dream of planting a vineyard.

Choosing to add a hovercraft to his equipment arsenal seemed a natural step to Agoglia, and working with Fitzgerald and Neoteric Hovercraft has been a positive step for the recovery team. “He does the real work,” Fitzgerald said of Agoglia. “Everyone else shows up to watch when it happens, but they disappear when it’s time for the work to be done.”

Fitzgerald’s company built the custom hovercraft with emergency lights and sirens and a stretcher mount that can carry an injured person. Four people can ride in the craft at one time, and its rapid response is what makes it valuable in a rescue effort.

“You don’t have to mess around with unloading at water’s edge,” Fitzgerald explained. “And it can perform where other vehicles can’t, such as a helicopter in hazy skies or bad weather. It can hover over fast moving water and not be affected by the current.”

One of Fitzgerald’s long-time customers, Steve Stafford of the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Department, assisted with Thursday’s mock rescue. He got his first hovercraft in 1993, and later sold it to the sheriff’s department when he decided to get a new one.

Stafford is a big advocate of the hovercraft, which runs on regular gasoline and is not as loud as an airboat, which cannot cover land. The hovercraft’s engine is essentially a snowmobile engine.

Stafford and Rich Nicholson of Lawrence County Search and Rescue said they most recently helped with rescues in Brown County and the Columbus area, and they have traveled to Ohio and Kentucky to help people trapped in bad locations and to evacuate medical patients.

Stafford assisted Thursday by coordinating the efforts of the Sugar Creek Fire Department and Air Evac to help with the mock rescue documentary.

Over the rainbow: A Neoteric Hovercraft’s spray creates a rainbow during a documentary filming on the Wabash River on Thursday. Tribune-Star/Bob Poynter

As the sun set on the film crew perched along a sandy river bank beneath a railroad bridge, Stafford piloted a hovercraft to the rescue scene while Agoglia assisted “survivor” Brian Sims as he climbed dripping wet onto the hovercraft’s stretcher.

A spray of water from behind the craft caught the sunlight, and a rainbow followed the hovercraft along the river. It seemed a fitting metaphor to the First Response mission.

See a photo gallery of the day’s events.