We were messing around the other day with some variations on how to better perform the best way to get a vertically oriented basket up over a 90 degree edge, which is know alternately as the “Pike and Pivot” or “V Strap” technique.
The issue of effective, efficient edge protection for our ropes and webbing was given us a bit of a challenge until our resident old man (and connoisseur of Miller Lite on his days off) , Mike S, suggested that we try and use a Sked as edge protection. It’s smooth, tough, has plenty of places to tie it off, and is much wider than standard edge protection. We’ve dubbed it Skedge Protection.
It can only be described as having worked perfectly for this situation.
I have no idea what the long term durability would be if used as edge pro all of the time, but for what we were using it for, I’ll definitely grab it without a second thought next time.
Here is a comparison of rescues performed at different speeds. The first one is an actual rescue from down in Florida of a worker who was suspended in his fall arrest harness after the scaffolding he was on collapsed. The word from our sources who were on the scene informed us that it took 1.5 hours to perform this pickoff rescue. I was not personally there and can not speak first hand of the details, but I am told that it was a pretty straight forward scenario that just took a very long time to accomplish.
The good news is that it was successful, but had the victim been in distress, it might have been a different outcome. A pickoff should be one of the bread and butter operations of every rope team. On the scene is not the time to figure out where your attachments go to the victim, method of unweighting them from their system, etc… This should all be hammered out and drilled on well in advance.
The opposite end of the spectrum is this video, brought to our attention by Eric Ulner of Ropes that Rescue, of a rescue competition which includes pickoffs. These guys are FAST!!! It looks like the video is sped up, but this is just the end product of dozens of hours of disciplined practice.
While real world rescues obviously present situations you are unable to specifically PLAN for, you should always be PREPARED for what might come your way. Rescues don’t need to happen at competition speed, but that’s no excuse for taking an excessive amount of time, either.
This post doesn’t have anything to do with ropes, however, it is a pretty clear example of overcoming your fear of something like heights which in this case happens to be 128,000 feet above the Earth. You better believe that Felix Baumgartener had faith in his training and equipment to step off of his balloon platform and free fall past Mach 1.
I think the parallels for rope work are similar, albeit not usually as extreme. So the next time you get butterflies in your stomach before you go over the edge, remember that you could be staring over your toes 26 MILES down to the ground. Trust your training and your equipment.
Sterling Rope recently released a voluntary recall for some of their 8mm sewn cordage. This affects some of the cordage sold with the popular AZTEK kit. Take a look at the images below to see if your cordage is in the affected lots. If it is, here’s the Cliff’s Notes version of what to do:
Call Sterling at 800-788-7673 or email them at returns@sterlingrope.com.
I picked this up from The Spec Ops Blog, which is a very good website with a ton of great info. Check them out.
While I’d love to start the year on a high note, this video of a rope rescue demonstration brought out the Debbie Downer in me. How many rope rescue guys does it take t screw in a light bulb? Answer: 7. One to screw it in and 6 to point out how he could have done it better and more safely.
With that in mind, I’d like to talk about the video below. There are a few things that jump out at me:
Firefighting gear isn’t technical rescue gear. I’d argue you are better off with the increased flexibility of your station uniform. The brim on the back of a firefighting helmet is great at keeping water and junk from falling down the back of your coat at a fire; it’s also great at hanging up on rope, railings, and everything else at a rope call.
While there are several examples of a worse edge transition, this one was successful, but had the potential for disaster. The mainline system was run under the fencing and the basket was placed over it. This created the potential for a pretty big drop. A belay line did not appear to be in place until the rescuer climbed over the fence.
There was no obvious edge protection for the main line. If the basket had dropped prior to the attachment of the belay line, it would have taken a pretty substantial fall on an unprotected edge.
The belay line was not along the same plane as the main line. If the belay line were to be needed, there would have been significant horizontal movement.
If using webbing to help lower a basket over the edge, consider wrapping a Munter (Italian) hitch around the railing rather than strong arming it.
A high directional would have solved most of these problems. Even just going over the fence would have helped quite a bit. To reinforce the fence and keep it from collapsing back towards the anchor due to the resultant, a reinforcing strut could be put into place pretty quickly. Like this:
There’s a right way and a wrong way to move somebody over water. Being a rope geek, I think it should always be done with rope. There might be some debate about whether it always the right answer, but I would argue that almost anything would be better than what transpired in the pictures below.
A sick passenger on a cruise liner was being transferred to a smaller boat to be taken to shore for medical treatment. She was placed on stretcher and transferred to the smaller boat while both boats were under way !
Things are going along just fine (but just look at the snow and ice on top of the smaller boat):
Moments later, rescuer Bob “Butterfingers” Johnson knows that he will never, ever get rid of his nickname. This is the victim taking her unintentional swim test in 27 degree water:
For another option of getting people off of a boat, check out the rope operation called a “Breeches Buoy”. It’s the older brother of the high line and was used for getting sailors to shore off of ships that had wrecked near the shore. It is basically a high line with all controls for lowering and retrieving the victim based on the shore.
Here is a duo of rescues. Both involve rope and both involve water. They couldn’t be more dissimilar if they tried, though.
This first one is from Virginia Beach, VA where a worker on top of a water tower apparently slipped and fell and was caught by his fall protection system. He doesn’t appear to be a rope access worker; more than likely he is a brave cell tower worker who climbed over the side to do some work and slipped while climbing down or back up over the edge. That’s complete speculation on my part, but it fits the circumstances pretty well.
It looks like a pretty straight ahead pickoff with the rescuer being lowered and lifting the worker off of his system with a clearly visible AZTEK. Take a look at the victim standing in his relief step awaiting rescue. Kind of like a really small slack line attached to your harness. Not nearly as fun, I imagine. Good job by the fire department to try and do the simplest thing first: see if the ladder reaches, then set up for a rope rescue. Thanks to Collin Moon of Elevated Safety for cluing us in on this one.
This next video was sent to us by Matt Hunt of Sterling Rope and is now probably my favorite video on youtube! It really appeals to me for the fact that these guys are using really simple physics concepts, applied smartly, to accomplish a goal. Check out the slick use of the “pike and pivot” method as well as a two man rope winch. Not too far of a stretch from rescuing people instead of cars.
I was wondering who the brave guy was that hooked up to the car. The description says that they were able to snag a tow hook on it while standing on the ice without any problem.
If you talk about adding a tensioned belay line to your system, you’re bound to develop some tension in your conversations with people who are not yet a fan of a tensioned belay line. The most common paradigm is to have a loaded main line and an untensioned, slack belay line; this is especially true in the fire service. Recently, however, there has been a bigger push towards sharing the load on both the main and belay line.
There are a couple of reasons for this push. On the fire service side of things, the advent of a device like CMC’s MPD which is able to serve as both a lowering device as well as a competent belay device, has made it possible for departments to capitalize on the advantages of a two tension rope system while still having a piece of gear that meets the ubiquitous NFPA standard. The second reason for the recent trending towards having a tensioned belay line stems from some extensive research into the topic. At the forefront of this charge is Mike Gibbs and his company, Rigging for Rescue.
Just what are the benefits of having a tensioned belay? As you can see from the videos below, the load falls quite a bit less on a loaded belay line. This is because the stretch that would occur in the belay line is taken out by loading the belay line prior to its activation. This is a good thing! The longer you fall, the more likely you are to get run over by the basket or hit another object on your way down. In the case of a dual MPD system, you also get the added benefit of having a mirrored system at the anchor. It’s only one device to learn how to use, which is a nice added benefit if your team doesn’t get to practice as much as you might like. Check out a pretty in depth look at tensioned belays at :
The following tests were all performed by Rigging for Rescue and used a 200 kg test mass, 30m of 11mm rope in service (except for the last one, which is 10.5mm dynamic) and a tandem prusik belay. The notable differences in how far the load dropped before stopping comes from tensioning the belay behind the prusiks.
Gallagher anybody?
Be sure to check out RfR’s website for a lot of other great research and opportunity to learn from a very knowledgeable group.
While it obviously is not for rescue, the concept of wedging the bicycle between two tensioned highlines is an interesting thought. If you have any thoughts on how to apply it to rescue, I’d love to hear them.
If you’re pulling on pulleys, multiplying the power of your polyester, performing a panoply of pick-offs, or trying to find a towel to wipe the spit off of your computer screen from reading so many “P” words in row; take a look at the videos below. They are each a description of how pulley systems work and are in order from simple concepts and explanations to a little more involved. You might know this stuff cold or it may be a good review. Either way, watching these videos is a fun and easy way to make sure all of the people on your team a staying fresh on pulley systems.
This first video is from the old Bill Nye the Science Guy show. If the opening cartoon brings you back to your youth, you can also look for “I’m Just a Bill” from Schoolhouse Rock. It must have been the same animator. Thanks to Phil Box at Rope Test Lab for posting a link to this
A little up the food chain is this classroom type demonstration from New England Rope:
Here is Pat Rhodes going over his 5 rules for a Mechanical Advantage system.
This last lesson for the day is Pat explain how to stagger your compound Mechanical Advantage systems so that they collapse at the same time:
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