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There’s a Right Way and a Wrong Way

Posted by rescue2training on December 7, 2013
Posted in: accident, high angle, highline, knots, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

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):

boat transfer 1

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:

boat transfer 2

Read the lurid details of the incident here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1378935/Sick-cruise-passenger-dropped-sea-Janet-Richardson-falls-botched-rescue.html

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.

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Best way to traverse a highline

Posted by rescue2training on October 8, 2013
Posted in: high angle, highline, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

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.

http://vimeo.com/76121144

Atomic Wedgies and Other Urban Vortex Thoughts

Posted by rescue2training on April 1, 2013
Posted in: appalachian doortex, confined space rescue, firefighting, high angle, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized, vortex. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 9 comments

While the Arizona Vortex is usually thought of as an industrial and wilderness rescue piece of equipment, it’s no secret that I think its full potential as a tool for the urban rescuer has not been fully explored. With that in mind, we are constantly trying (occasionally failing) to find out how to best use this tool to our advantage.  We’ve been working on different configurations of the Appalachian Wedge Pole (AWP) lately.

The first and perhaps the most useful version of the Wedge Pole is used to create anchors in a hallway where others might not exist. While no permanent name has been found yet, and because it appears to be bombproof, we’ve been calling it the Atomic Wedge Pole. Or Atomic Wedgie for short. As in: “Hey give him an Atomic Wedgie quickly, so we can get on with this rope rescue. ”  But again, no permanent name yet.

Below are some pictures we took during the discovery phase of these anchors, a scale model so to speak. They were loaded with a couple of guys giving it all they had, leaning into the load line. It was an initial test to see if the anchors would move at all. The next step in the process will be to load these with a one person load and operate a raising and lowering system. Then on to a two person load.

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A slightly more complex version that allows for a longer haul field that runs toward the edge.

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2 to 1 Wedgie

Some techniques might be setups in search of an application, the picture below being one such example. I envision using this above a hole in a hallway, where there are no other anchors present. This might be more of an industrial confined space setup, but it’s neat to see in action.

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These pictures above are of urban usage, but we developed the technique out on the rocks. Here are two pictures of the first AWP setups, one horizontal and one vertical, from when the idea first struck.

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This last picture comes to us from the men of Group 2 on Rescue 1 with the Boston Fire Department. They constructed an Appalachian Lean-To and changed the direction of the haul line 90 degrees at the head resting on the floor. To counteract the resultant force that wants to lift the left leg away from the wall, they front tied the setup to an anchor spanning the doorway with two AZTEKs, one of which is doing the job of keeping that left leg in compression when it naturally wants to pull away from the wall because of the COD on the head. Good job guys!

sandy lasa

Man down a well

Posted by rescue2training on January 14, 2013
Posted in: confined space rescue, firefighting, high angle, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Near Olympia, WA a man was rescued after falling approximately 30′ down a well into waist high standing water. Good heads up by the rescue team when they threw him a PFD to help keep him from drowning into water of an undetermined depth. Note also, the presence of well known volunteer Batt. Chief Andy Speier of the technical rescue team.

A local press release:

THURSTON COUNTY TEAM RESCUES MAN FROM WELL

Shortly after 10:30 this morning, members of the Thurston County Special Operations Rescue Team (SORT) assisted Mason County Fire District #4 in the rescue of a man that had fallen into an abandoned well at a residence located in the 300 block of SE Arcadia Road near Shelton. According to Andy Speier, Battalion Chief with the McLane Black Lake Fire Department, the man was in the process of demolishing a shed and was standing on what he believed was a four foot deep sump when the earth gave way, plunging him 35 feet down the well into deep water. First responders from Mason County Fire District #4 and the Sheriff’s office were able to successfully lower a floatation device and protective clothing to the man who was treading water to stay afloat.

According to Speier, “With the rescue team in place, Lt. Mark Schreck of the Olympia Fire Department was lowered into the well to prepare the victim to be hoisted back to the surface”. “Once secured in a harness, the man was then hauled up and out of the well”. While the patient was wet and cold, he appeared to be uninjured from the fall.

Technical rescue trained firefighters from Mclane Black Lake, Olympia, East Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater Fire Departments assisted in the rescue.

 

[brightcove vid=2081848354001&exp3=836564316001&surl=http://c.brightcove.com/services&pubid=309144709001&pk=AQ~~,AAAAR_p154k~,Ay3i1IziTki8aMdGaY0jFtvV8ga6DiJN&w=615&h=392]

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Thanks once again to Mike Forbes for the heads up on this.

 

 

 

Appalachian Flag Pole

Posted by rescue2training on December 15, 2012
Posted in: appalachian doortex, confined space rescue, firefighting, high angle, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . 2 comments

This post was originally published in Dec of 2012. After switching servers we lost the video and some of the pictures.  We’ve recently found them again and wanted to repost this for the many people who contacted us during the past 4.5 years asking about it. Enjoy.

 

During our most recent “New Technologies” class in Lancaster, PA, we we were posed with the scenario of how to create a high point and system for rescue from grain silos. It was explained to us that the flimsyness of a roof on a silo doesn’t exactly inspire confidence to operate on. Not to mention that there aren’t that many anchors up there.

After thinking on it for a bit, we were able to come up with what basically amounts to a gin pole lashed to the interior ladder and rising up above the top of the silo, much like a flagpole. So we called it the Appalachian Flag Pole (naturally).

After searching around for a while after class, it appears we were not the first people to figure out the AF. The cell tower industry uses this sort of thing to raise sections of their towers. They just call it a gin pole…BORING.  As far I can tell, nobody has tried this as a rescue technique.

Boring Gin Pole:

cell gin

The basic setup of the Appalachian Flag Pole consists of lashing a few sections of an Arizona Vortex to the interior ladder of the silo. With about 3 feet of it sticking up above the top of the structure. Yes, it is unsupported, but there is not a lot of bending force on the top of the AFP. The resultant force is pretty much straight down the leg, with the force being transferred to the ladder.

Version 1 of the of the AFP had the haul system attached to the orange head, which is at the bottom of the AFP and lashed to the ladder, with a change of direction at the top of the AFP and the rope going back down to the victim.

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It worked well, but required a lot of resets.

So, while working with Collin Moon and the guys from Elevated Safety in Chicago, we were able to refine the technique by attaching out MPD to the top of the AFP and do a counter balance raise. We also figured out that we could the blue AZV head for out top anchor point instead of a foot. And when Rock Exotica comes out with the 720 head…watch out!

Check out the video below to see the AFP in action. A couple of things to keep in mind: Where the camera is filming from would actually be the outside of the silo. Collin is the rescuer in this case; the victim outweighs him by a good 50lbs and he was still able to easily accomplish the task. This only happens when the rescuer hauls upwards on the victims line while simultaneously sitting down on the counterbalance line. Lastly, after the victim is out of the hole at the top (the metal grating in this case) they can be pushed to the outside of the silo and lowered with the MPD. If the video below is taking too long to load, CLICK HERE for the video on Youtube. Take a peak:

There are some urban applications that we believe the APF would excel at and will post the results when we complete the testing on it. It is our belief that it can be used successfully in the urban setting, such as the chimney in the picture below, where a man suffered a fatal fall into the chimney while attempting to take pictures. This happened in Chicago on 12/13. Article Here

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If you have any thoughts or comments, feel free to leave them or to contact me at kelly@rescue2training.com.  Enjoy!

A pig and a dog walk into a…

Posted by rescue2training on November 26, 2012
Posted in: confined space rescue, firefighting, high angle, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

A pig and a dog walk into … Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke doesn’t it? Really, it’s just the start of a bad day for two animal owners.

Some people like ham during the holidays, this pig in Colorado wanted no part of that family tradition and attempted to bury himself to get away from ending up on the family table. Thankfully, the local FD was on hand to make sure this giant hog didn’t stay in his makeshift hole for too long.

In all seriousness though, how would you have handled this incident had the pig not been able to assist in is own rescue. My initial thought would be to wrap a salvage cover and some large ratchet straps under his belly to make a sling, which could be rigged to a raising system. As for a high point… maybe a couple of ground ladders lashed together at the tip and a block and tackle attached? I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. Click on the “comment” button (above or below the post, depends on how you’re viewing it). Thanks to Statter911 for making us aware of this one.

In another animal related story, a dog fell down what is believed to be an airshaft for an abandoned mine. The shaft is roughly 150′ deep. The dog was uninjured in the fall and happy as heck to see his owner upon surfacing, naturally. The dogs owner also seems genuinely appreciative of the rope team’s work.

Make sure you click on the link ti the photo gallery to the left of the article. One of the pictures there shows the opening to the hole. It definitely looks like a pretty dangerous opening, with lots of debris ready to fall down the hole. A good high point looks like it would almost be mandatory, so your ropes wouldn’t be rubbing on the edge.

http://newsitem.com/news/kulpmont-couple-is-grateful-for-rescuers-who-saved-dog-from-150-foot-hole-1.1407105

Holy Rope Rescue, Batman!

Posted by rescue2training on November 16, 2012
Posted in: firefighting, high angle, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

While Batman may have nothing to do with these two stories, they are nonetheless a bit holy in that both of the following rope stories take place in churches.

The first story is of 85 year old Rev. Tim Harrison of St George’s Cathedral in Perth, Australia who rappeled 130 feet down the side of the bell tower for Seniors week. From some of the pictures, it looks like he has better form than a lot of 20-somehthings! Good job Reverend.

Heavenly Descent

And if you think bell towers and rope go together like milk and cookies, you might be right. But then again, you might end up like an unlucky bell-ringer from near Bath, England. While ringing the bells at her local church, the unlucky victim made the rookie mistake of not letting go of the rope in time. What followed was the inevitable flying up in the air and the requisite return trip to terra firma at the speed of gravity.

The victim was knocked unconscious and had to be lowered through a hole in the belfry floor rather than carried down the small stairway. Not an obvious place for a rope rescue, but certainly a heads up call by the responders on scene.

Unholy Ascent

Appalachian Doortex

Posted by rescue2training on September 26, 2012
Posted in: appalachian doortex, confined space rescue, firefighting, high angle, rope access, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized, vortex. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , . 8 comments

Here are some new AZV uses we at R2T have been testing to see the real world practicality of.  There are some earlier proof of concept pictures on the multimedia page, but these were done in exposure with a two person load. They’re all versions of what we’ve decided to call the Appalachian Doortex (APD), an obvious attempt at getting some East Coast love into the rope world.

The purpose of these APD is to create either an anchor, a high directional, or both simultaneously in the urban environment. The initial thought was for use in elevators, but can obviously work to create an anchor anywhere there is a solid block wall surrounding a door. We run A LOT of stalled elevators in in the city where I work, 15 a day is about average in our geographically small city. Not many require any rope work at all, but the one’s that do can be a real pain. Have you ever looked in an elevator lobby for anchors or a high directional? Not much around. That’s the problem we were trying to solve.

The “Ram’s Head” is the first version we came up with. In this configuration we hooked both MPDs right to the head of the APD; there was no guying, tying, or anything. The foot of the lazy leg was not resting against the opposite wall. Aside from a very minor initial settling in of the APD, it did not move during the operation. It was loaded with a two person load that was raised and lowered several times. One of the MPDs was hooked up in a fashion that caused it to bind against the head of the AZV a bit because it allowed us to have the operating handle facing outward. Because of the angle of the rope leaving the MPD into the elevator shaft, this very minor binding was felt not to be an issue.

Next up is an Upside Down APD, with no clever name given yet. Maybe the Appalachian Lean-To (ALT)? Yup we’ll go with that for now.  Just another way to make an anchor/HD combo. Also loaded with a two person load, operated up and down a bunch.

Here is the close up of the dual MPD anchoring on the Appalachian Lean-To.

Below are two pictures of what we used to keep the the Appalachian Lean-To from kicking back should it have wanted to. It didn’t want to. We had a dynomometer in there to see if there was any force trying to push the ALT away from the opening. The needle didn’t move at all during the operation. We were pulling against an extra leg section of an AZV run through two 4×6 blocks with holes drilled in them to keep the leg section from resting on a small, roll prone contact point on the hoistway doors. We’ve been calling them “Brace Blocks” (Appalachian Brace Blocks?) They worked really well. I suspect they can be used to help span doorways in buildings to create quick, simple anchors in a hallway.

While we have not tested a center pulled AZV leg to failure yet, this one was pulled to 500 lbs without any visible deflection. Further testing on this configuration will be conducted in the near future and we’ll let you know what we find out.

If anybody has any thoughts, questions or comments on this, or would like further training on operating on rope in an urban environment please feel free to leave a comment below or send Kelly an email directly at rescue-2@comcast.net.

Break Out the Violin Bow

Posted by rescue2training on September 18, 2012
Posted in: high angle, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

…to play that overly tensioned piece of rope that’s supposed to be a highline! Or, at least that was my first thought until I realized that  it was an unloaded basket. Pictures from a different website show a basket with an attendant on it clearly creating a more appropriate amount of sag in the track line. I’m curious if they ever did have a victim in the basket as well as an attendant. The goal of the drill, aside from incorporating a bunch of rope skills and logistical planning, is to get a patient who is in distress to an area where they can be helped. If that is the goal, why not train with a victim in the basket?
I’m not picking on these guys in West Point, NY. There are lots of places that don’t put victims in a basket. “Safety” is the reason that I have most often heard. If “safety” of your system depends on the difference of 200lbs, we should probably use another system. “Scared” or “uncomfortable” are a much more realistic answer. I know I don’t like being in the basket on drills. Not only are you out of the rigging picture, you also feel completely helpless just laying there. And you pretty much are. But you can imagine that somebody who has NO idea what is going on (an actual victim) is going to be 10 times as scared as you are.

It’s not a bad idea to place somebody in the victim role so you are at least able to empathize with people somewhat when they are laying helpless in a basket.

More pics

Article

Now, we’re only looking at a small scene from a moment in time, but the rigging pictured below raised a couple of flags for me. First is the use of redundant anchor straps. The second is attaching one biner to those anchor straps to hold the whole system. Just food for thought:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tight!

Not so bad once loaded:

Same department, different drill:

 

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/