Learning from others’ mistakes is something we can and should do, particularly when it pertains to rescue work. The situations below are prime examples of this. Take a minute to laugh a little at their misfortune (I’m pretty sure nobody died), but then try and absorb what happened and make sure it doesn’t happen to you.
The first example of things going bad could have been solved by a couple of easy solutions like: knowing how to tie a knot, having somebody who knows how to tie a knot look over your system, use a backup line that is tied with an appropriate knot, etc… There’s a trend there somewhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZfdbGlwNeg
Knowing how your system is going to react when acted upon is a REALLY good skill to have when performing rope rescue operations. See if you can figure out what is going to happen in the video below when the helicopter pulls up to lift the rescue package:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG7LrF5y5Lo
Here at Rescue 2 Training we are pretty big fans of getting our rope systems up off of the ground for the edge transition. Combine a low rope over the edge with not knowing what your rope system is going to do when you load it (as mentioned above) and you have recipe for a bad time. Here is what the finished, face smashing product (and Bad Edge Transition Hall of Fame member) looks like when you pull it out of the oven:
No matter how cool your wife is with rope stuff and your mastery of fear while working at height, I’m sure you will find that it is always cooler to you than it is to her. While you may be dying to impress her with your ability to tie an Alpine Butterfly with one hand or some other type of awesomeness, I think you’ll find it leads to more trouble than it is worth.
Take for instance the fellow who wanted to be flown in by crane to impress the girl he was proposing to. It does not end well. Take note of a few things here: The first is that we have one crane supporting the boom of another in order to lift a one person load ! I’m not a crane guy, but I can’t imagine that this is advocated for in any safe rigging manual. The other issue is the sling itself. A simple choker wasn’t cutting it. That thing needed to be wrapped a few times in order to keep it from slipping up the boom. Just keep that in the back of your mind next time you sling an anchor that has the potential for a lateral load. It’s hard to tell, but it also looks like it might have been short jacked in the back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsyicdQHSiE
Below are some examples of woman humoring their mans desire to strut his peacock feathers on rope
One of them looks like they are having fun:
Below is another example of 50% of the participants thinking “This is the coolest thing ever!” Although there actually is a pretty cool backstory to it HERE
Cool only because they managed to get an artificial high directional in the mix:
I wonder if the chicks in the pictures are bride-zillas about the rigging. You know like compromising rigging angles in order to get the best pictures, “does this harness make me look fat” etc… Just thinking out loud. Stay Safe!
Take a look at the first video in the link below. It’s a news story out of Fort Wayne, IN that I assume was supposed to be a simple feel good piece highlighting the local rope rescue team. If you want to jump right to the good stuff, go to the 2:10 mark in the video. What you will see is a really big, really expensive mousetrap.
I do feel a little bit bad about Monday morning quarterbacking this video… but not enough to cause me not to do it.
First, the critical point at the Kootenay Carriage. It would appear that there are two track lines, and two upper control lines (although no lower control lines) with tails going down to the rescuer and victim. The Kootenay, however, remains a critical point. Do I think it will fail? No. But we rig for failure caused by human factors, not equipment factors. Should that Kootenay fail though, the basket could take a major and possibly fatal swing fall.
Second, there is difficulty with attempting to get the basket back up over the edge after they took a ride down and back up the track lines. The reason given in the report is that the “ropes stretched”. While I don’t doubt they stretched, take a look at the link the news story below the youtube video. The second video is extra footage they got while doing the shoot. It is obvious from watching it that they were going to have this problem. While initially loading the basket over the edge you can see how far it drops down when it is initially loaded. It’s about the same distance that they are below the edge when they come back up.
Rope stretch? Maybe. Foreseeable problem? More likely. I’m curious if the attendant could have stood on the end of the basket in order to raise the head up and over the edge. Also a factor is the excessively tall bridle they use. Judging by the video, I’m guessing from the bottom of the basket to the top of the carriage to be six feet in height.
Third, you can see from this picture just how close the resultant is to being outside of the footprint of the tripod. When the track lines were tensioned to raise the load, I’m curious if the friction in the pulleys caused them to temporarily move the resultant until they found their center again.
Fourth, two statements made during this gave me a bit of heartburn. The first is that the “white rope didn’t work the way it was supposed to.” Ropes work exactly as they are rigged. Unless it broke under tension due to unseeable chemical degradation, it was rigging failure. It’s hard to tell what the white lines were rigged to, but I’m guessing they got pulled up off of whatever they were on. The second statement is that “nobody was dropped…they were lowered”. If it was unexpected and uncontrolled, it was a drop. Maybe I would have been inclined to say the same thing out of embarrassment while on camera, but lets call it what it is.
Last, neither the reporter in the basket, nor the one on the roof seen just before the tripod topples, have a helmet on. If I were running this show, it probably would have been an afterthought for me too. Having seen this video, I’d be willing to bet it would be a fatal blow if a tripod toppling like that hits you in the head, helmet or not.
I do applaud Ft. Wayne TRT for allowing this to air (if in fact they had a choice). It’s sometimes hard to admit a goof up. It’s even harder to have it on tape for guys to critique from a distance without knowing the full circumstances (me). The least we can do is try to learn from it.
Take a look at the video sent to us by Larry Mullin of Fairfax County FD. The video shows a technique used when attempting to rescue a suicidal person who is about to jump off of a bridge. Apparently this is for when somebody like, I don’t know, a trained psychologist is unavailable and the jumper is patient enough to wait idly by as you set up two rope rescue systems. I’d love to know what you do after you have them. Raise them back up? Lower everybody into the water? Who knows?
I’ve never had to do this type of “rescue”, but I don’t want to be hanging on to a person who wants to die for an extended period of time with no other means of attaching to them. If you’d like to know why, take a look at the second video. Which will also serve as a good pitch for some type of auto locking descender.
Check out this article from Las Vegas. It’s about the new 550′ Ferris wheel that can hold over 1100 people and the article highlights some of the planning that went in to possible rescue situations.
Kudos to the Las Vegas FD tech rescue team for being proactive in the situation. It looks like, should something ever happen, that it will be a complex mix of lead climbing, aid climbing, and some team based lowering. The fact that the fire dept. was consulted at all during construction is pretty neat too. Anchors were placed inside each pod so that a system could be hooked up and 3 victims at a time can be lowered.
Thanks to my sister, Caity, for pointing this one out to us. It’s not rescue stuff, but be sure to check out her awesome website spiralspiritballooncompany.com. Lots of great sculptures there!
Here are two great videos from DRR Rescue posted on youtube that show how to construct a 1-1-1 picket system, which is three pickets placed in a row.
Two things stood out to me in these videos. First, I really like the system they used to tie the pickets together. I’ve seen a few different variations on the technique, most involving some sort of windlass to tighten the webbing. Doing that requires more hardware, as well as driving in another piece of rebar. The videos show what amounts to a non working 3:1 with webbing.
The second thing that really stood out was how much force this system was able to hold. They put over 6ooo lbs of force on the system. While the picket did flex a little bit, it did not noticeably pull forward in the ground. I’m anxious to try this in the rain soaked, clay dirt around my house!
Thanks again to DRR for sharing these with the world. Be sure to check out the tutorial section on the website as well as their field guide, that thing is full of great, easy to apply info. http://www.desertrescue.com
There is a lot to be said for how far technology has allowed us to go in the world of ropes as it relates to safety: Stronger yet smaller ropes, lightweight high strength aluminum hardware, etc… But is fun to cast our thoughts back to where the rope rescue world has ascended (that’s a pun) from. Check out the rescue drama in the youtube video below. It is from 1949 and was posted by Ron Holan on the Rope Access Technicians Network group on Facebook.
The neat part about this for me was that they didn’t use any carbiners or friction devices to lower the casualty. It was all done with friction wraps around their bodies and around rock outcrops. While this might not be how a rescue should be done now, given all of our available equipment, it is none the less a look at how a rescue can be done without any equipment.
Maybe you could use this video as an idea for a drill: Only use a Stokes basket and a rope, no hardware, to accomplish lowering a package down a building, catwalk, mountain, etc… Oh, and they weren’t using Prusiks either. They only had trust in each other!
Also pretty darn old school is this picture of Silver Spring VFD using the ladder truck for a high directional to get a Stokes basket off of the roof of a one story school and down to the ground. Thanks to our Florida friend Joe Schulman for findiong and sharing this one.
It’s hard to tell for sure from the picture, but it looks like the rope is just hard tied to the tip and the ladder is just craning the load. Similar to one of our previous posts HERE , it’s also another example of how it might be easy to access a patient via ladder and use a rope system to get them down.
We have just added an Open Enrollment Class for our Modern Technologies in Rope Rescue workshop on May 17 and 18 in Lancaster, PA.This class covers a lot of ground in two days. We will discuss and use the AZTEK in many of its essential uses. We’ll also be using the Two Tension Rope System concept with the CMC MPD. Additionally, we’ll be using the Arizona Vortex in some of its traditional configurations as well as the Rescue 2 Training original: the “Appalachian Doortex” configuration for urban anchoring and elevator rescue.
Come out and try the newest equipment and techniques in rope rescue. Cost of the class is $295.
Email Kelly M Byrne at kelly@rescue2training.com or call 240-462-6610 for more information.
The recent rescue by the South Walton Fire District’s Technical Rescue team in Florida is a great example of rescue where it is easy to access the victim by something as simple as a ladder, but where a rope based system might still be the best alternative for getting them down to the ground safely.
You can see in the pictures that the guys on the ground are able to guide the basket most of the way to the ground while it is supported on the ladder and being lowered with rope.
Two quick points: If possible, I would have tried to line up my ladder with my anchors so that it was all in plumb. Maybe there is a good reason they didn’t. It’s hard to tell from just a picture. Secondly, you can see how easily they overcame this by just having a rescuer on the roof do a very minor deflection by just pulling on the rope. It’s a good example of knowing how to easily overcome a problem by knowing a few physics tricks.
Not all rope calls are high pucker factor incidents of life and death. Sometimes it’s just the simplest way of getting the patient to the ground. Good job, guys.
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