high angle

Another One Over the Falls

Posted by rescue2training on September 14, 2012
Posted in: high angle, rope rescue, technical rescue. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a Comment

The gravity near Wallace Falls in Idaho must be much higher than elsewhere on Earth. For the second times in 4 months, a person has fallen off the trail and into the water at the top of the falls. Despite being a 200+ foot drop, people seem to still want to risk it by looking over the edge. The most recent fall was a 20′ fall into the water. The girl got herself back to shore, but needed a rope system set up to get back to the top side.

 

Here is a link to the article:

HERE
Previous Drama at Wallace Falls

 

Additionally, here is a news story about a technical rescue in Willard, UT where two climbers were stranded for 24 hours after excessive rockfall caused them to stop climbing. That’s got to be a serious pucker factor for rescuers: you KNOW the rock is unstable and you still have to do a rope rescue just the same. Here’s the article:

HERE

Picture Gallery

 

That type of rock doesn’t exactly inspire confidence does it?

Bowline=Death?

Posted by rescue2training on September 3, 2012
Posted in: high angle, rope access, rope rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 1 comment

Can a bowline with a Yosemite finish be a recipe for disaster? According to the video below  the answer is a resounding yes. That is, of course, if you are prone to loosely and incorrectly tying and dressing your knots. I think there are quite a few knots that would come undone given those set of circumstances. You can read  about the inspiration for this posting of mine at these two climbing forums:

Rockclimbing.com

Supertopo.com

Does this mean that it is a bad knot? I would argue that it is (k)not. It could be argued that it might not be the best thing to use as a harness tie in for people who are only using it for climbing. But to argue that one usage against the effectiveness and efficiency of the many variations of this knot when used for rescue, seems a like it might be limiting yourself. For instance, you can tie on bowline on the bight with a Yosemite to create a quick rope anchor, around a tree for example, with a bight to be used for connecting your friction device to; or use a Portuguese bowline to anchor an A frame as shown in the last video. I would(k)not discount a whole series of knots just because one variation of it does not fit one specific use. I might be preaching to the choir, but I still wanted to get it out there. Please feel free to leave a comment if you have any thoughts on the matter.

Here is the first video of how not to tie a bowline with a Yosemite

Here is are two video sfrom R2T friend Eric Campbell. One on how to tie a “snap bowline” with a properly tied Yosemite and the other, a couple of bowline variations for anchoring

Lastly, you can see in this video, around the :17 mark, a Portuguese bowline (with a bight and Yosemite) used to anchor the A Frame and create a rearward facing bight to attach the 3:1 tensioning system to. To do this with a family of 8 knots would take forever, not be nearly as clean, and is sure to eat up a ton of rope.

Cratering

Posted by rescue2training on August 29, 2012
Posted in: high angle, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

No, not falling to the ground, which is what I think of when I hear the word cratering. This is a video taken at Crater Lake from a recent Josephine County SAR training exercise. I particularly like the thoughts expressed on their website about being able to learn from other groups and being willing to look critically at the pictures after the operation to spot any things they might not have picked up on in the heat of the operation. That’s probably a harder skill to work on than any litter scoop they did that day. Good job JoCoSAR!

From the JoCoSAR website:

Last weekend was a fabulous opportunity for us to train with 5 other rope rescue teams from southern Oregon.  By chance, we worked both days with the Corvallis MRU, a MRU certified team with a lot of depth, experience, and talent.  Every rope unit evolves its characteristic way of doing things, but we profit by seeing alternative ways to work safely—especially when we can talk through the alternative pros and cons.  That isn’t possible, of course, on a real rescue.  This short video isn’t intended to be a demonstration or “how to” video.  It is just a record of what our two units did on this particular day in a spectacular spot on the Earth.  

Often, photos show us details we miss watching a dynamic event “live.”  Reviewing the pictures allows a chance to review small details that might change how we do things next time or show a way not previously considered to solve a technical problem.  The site chosen was picked because it offered technical problems including a narrow “chimney,” overhanding sharp rock and narrow areas for a litter—not because it offered good photo access.  It wasn’t easy to see what was happening over the lip of rock at the start of the descent, but we hung over the edge and took the best shots we could to learn from and to share.  I find what these people did to be awe-inspiring for their skill, strength, judgement and presence-of-mind demonstrated under pressure—this is what rope rescue requires.  This was a wonderful day. Thank you, Corvallis MRU, for all you shared!

 

Get Your Head out of the Sand

Posted by rescue2training on August 23, 2012
Posted in: confined space rescue, firefighting, high angle, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

From St. Paul Minnesota comes video and pictures of this confined space /trench / rope rescue incident where a worker fell down a hole that he had just bored in the sandy soil for a column for the light rail tracks. Thanks to Collin Moon from Elevated Safety for the heads up on this one.

Clever job by the St Paul guys using a horse collar to hand down to the guy in the pit to raise him up with. All in all a decent looking job done simply; the best way. If I could pick some things to improve, I’d definitely make the bight attached to the rescuers harness smaller, I’d probably control the operation with the rope instead of the bucket (which they may have done but it doesn’t look like it), and I would probably get the two guys out of the bucket during the operation.

Here is a link and two pictures of the incident. The CMC MPD looked to be used in this incident for the mainline.

http://www.firehouse.com/news/10761621/minn-crews-rescue-light-rail-worker-trapped-in-pit

http://twincitiesfirewire.com/2012/08/20/st-paul-crews-pull-worker-after-fall-into-hole/

Rescue in Sedona

Posted by rescue2training on August 20, 2012
Posted in: firefighting, high angle, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

While Sedona, AZ is the site of countless practice rope rescues thanks to being home to a couple of rope rescue schools, it was recently time to do the real deal.

Thunder Mountain was the location of this rescue after a hiker fell several feet of the trail and down into a ravine and was unable to climb back up due to his injury. Here is a link to the story:

HERE

One thing that was interesting to me is the three hour search for the victim. As an urban fireman, it is neat to see a different perspective of FD operations in n area with more wilderness than urban buildup. I’m pretty sure that if we had to search 3 hours for somebody, most guys would think we were on a wild goose chase after about 15 minutes; and in a big city they would probably be right. It is neat to see that smaller departments are equipped to handle emergencies like this that take longer to handle. Good job Sedona FD!

 

Here is one of the pictures from the article. Interesting to note the cross about 100 feet above the rescuer and victim. I’m curious (morbidly) if this was the site of a previous fatality.

 

Krazy New Rope Technique

Posted by rescue2training on August 11, 2012
Posted in: high angle, rope access, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , . Leave a Comment

While I am not one usually prone to checking something out because of an ad on television, I have to admit that I went straight to the website of Krazy Glue after seeing a window washer stunt where a guy was suspended by two shackle couplers glued together with Krazy Glue.

I was interested to see the rigging involved, so went to their behind the scenes section. It looks like they used a two rope system with the belay hooked to the dorsal D ring and the main attached to the front. There looked to be a sewn loop jumper between the shackles should the glue have failed. You can see the behind the scene shots on their Facebook page here:

http://www.facebook.com/krazyglue/app_131841236955666

 

Take notice that, while the footage is sped up, there are no breaks in the camera editing, it’s one shot from start to finish. I’ve never had that kind of luck with any glue I’ve used, but I guess it’s hard to deny what they did here.

Monday morning QB alert!!!   Just nit picking, but I thought the belay could have been kept a little bit tighter.

Balls Out Rescue

Posted by rescue2training on August 7, 2012
Posted in: firefighting, high angle, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Depending on which news report you read, a 22 year old female either “took a tumble” or fell 90 feet and suffered neck and back injuries as well as severe leg injuries after she fell from Balls Falls and had to be airlifted to a hospital. The technical rescue team decided against a rope system and instead carried her up the trail because of “poor lighting and safety issues.”  HERE

Here is a brief video of the falls:

If I fell from the top of that, I’d call it more than a tumble! While I was obviously not on the scene, it strikes me as odd that lighting is a reason to call off the possibility of a rope rescue. It speaks of the need to both equip your team to operate at night as well as train at night.While cliche, it is true that rescues don’t always happen when it is 72 and sunny.

And from just upstream of the Balls Falls rescue, was a group of three 20 year old guys climbing on the rocks beneath Horseshoe Falls in Niagara. Police rappelled 50 feet down to the group, busted them for disorderly conduct, reckless endangerment, and possession of a controlled substance. A threefor  while on rope! HERE

Busy times on rope for our neighbors to the north!

Lastly, a lucky close call for a couple and there dog in Northwest Spokane, WA after they’re Toyota pick flew 50 feet down an embankment and their trailer catapulted a few hundred feet further down the hill. It looks like Spokane Fire did a steep slope evacuation to get the patients up the hill. Do you have your game plan down for how your department does slope evacuations?

HERE

Practice makes perfect

Posted by rescue2training on August 2, 2012
Posted in: high angle, rope access, rope rescue, technical rescue. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a Comment

The rope rescue team from Bonneville, WA gets it’s practice by helping out during the shutdown of the Bonneville Dam. The members are sent down the side to take care of trees growing out of the walls as well as being on standby while biologists are on rope to do their own bit of inspection.

It seems like a good way for the team get some really great on rope training experience in the place where they are most likely to get a call.

 

Article Here

 

Weekend update with Bo Lin

Posted by rescue2training on July 29, 2012
Posted in: firefighting, high angle, rope access, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Here are a few different rope articles to whet your kernmantle whistle for the weekend.

First up is an article from the Art of Manliness website sent to us by all around manly man and HazMat guru Jack Spencer. It showcases an exercise done in Navy BUD/S training where candidates tie knots underwater. It’s not a huge mental leap to figure out where this might be a useful process to go through: retrieving objects from under water, stabilization of vehicles in moving water, etc… If nothing else it will help break up the boredom of doing the same drill over and over again. There’s a ton of other cool things on this website that are not rope related, yet somehow are still manly.

Manly Link

Next up is a the way window washers SHOULD be rescued when hanging 35 floors up. The difference in the key words used to describe this incident is a pretty stark contrast to the way the FDNY described it’s window washer rescue: Professional, training, safe vs. dangerous, heroic, 45 minutes with a diamond tipped angle grinder, etc…  What I’m getting at is that these types of operations are difficult to PLAN for, they are relatively easy to PREPARE  for. The distinction being that you can’t know exactly where an incident like this will occur, but you can know that an incident like this will occur somewhere. Victim pick off should be a pretty straightforward option for a team that says they are capable of performing a rope rescue.

Video of pickoff

Article about the rescue

My kind of guy. Rescuer calls it “fun”

 

And last up is a rescue of a cliff jumper in Alabama. Not your Red Bull type extreme jumping, just a local swimming hole.  It looks like a combined ground and helo based plan. As we’ve stated before, the hallmark of a good team is to have a Plan B,C, and D in place. All of those moving pieces still didn’t prevent locals from going right back to jumping though.

 

Vide0s and stills of cliff rescue