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Banff Rescue

Posted by rescue2training on June 15, 2012
Posted in: rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a Comment

I’m heading up near Banff next week myself and while I hope to be able to enjoy the scenery, I don’t want to get the view of the mountain as up close and personal as this guy. While climbing a multi-pitch route, a falling rock hit a climber on the head and knocked him unconscious and caused to him to fall approximately 60 feet. His top  piece of climbing protection popped out, but his other pieces held.

A couple of things to keep an eye out for:

Check out the victim’s helmet, that thing has a huge crack in it on the victim’s right side.

I would have probably reached out for the short haul line as it is being flown back in (never been on a short haul, so I’m guessing); the rescuer in the video waits for it to come to him.

The release of the rescue package from the anchor station as the helicopter flies away. If there had been any snags at the anchor, it would have caused a world of problems for the pilot and the rescuer. I’m guessing these guys have trained on this before.

Here’s a brief report of what happened:

http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/progs/np-pn/sp-ps/sec7/sec7-2010.aspx#DansDelight-aug28

Thanks to Mike Forbes from Spokane FD for making us aware of this video!

Runner Up for World’s Worst Edge Transition

Posted by rescue2training on June 8, 2012
Posted in: rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 2 comments

If you remember and appreciate our previous post of the world’s worst edge transition, here is a video of the runner up. I try not not be TOO critical of video because I wasn’t there, but there is always room for learning and improvement. Soooo…

Despite:

1. Having a high change of direction anchor at the edge

2. Having an attendant

3. And two tag lines

They still managed to get the basket hung up on the edge!

Possible fixes:

The high COD at the edge with a system behind it should have enabled the crews to do a vector pull between the anchor and the COD to raise the basket temporarily at the edge to clear obstacle.

It looks like the attendant was just going along for the ride rather than being an active attendant trying to help the basket to negotiate obstacles. While the low attendant position (legs below the basket) seems to be the most popular, I think it would be beneficial in this case, at least during the edge transition, for the attendant to ride in the high position. This is where the attendant’s legs are above the basket and below the attachment bridle. This would allow for keeping the basket away from the snags at the edge. Moving to the low attendant position after the first edge would allow the attendant to keep away from obstructions coming up from below.

Pull on the tag lines!

As a guy who loves to train, I’m reasonably sure that regular  training on rope rescue techniques, regardless of equipment, could have solved many of these issues. Get out there and play!