rescue

All posts tagged rescue

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.

IMG_1216

IMG_1224

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

CT Intercontinental00003.JPG

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

Do Dropkicks Belong in Rope Rescue?

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

I’m going to go out on a ledge here and say that they might. You can see the technique in action in the two videos below. This first video shows a more subtle version of the “Kickoff Pickoff ” that may or may not have been made up on the spot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLZzqNlpazU&feature=player_embedded

This next video clearly shows that this team has practiced this more aggressive version of the Kickoff Pickoff. Note that he was completely comfortable on a short, very fast rappel and the coordination of his partner dropping all of his excess rope as he jumps. Clearly they’ve trained on this enough to know that it will work. Because, if you get it wrong, it’s going to be a LONG day on the typewriter trying to explain this one away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn7SWTj9TIU

A Real Tower Rescue

Posted by rescue2training on October 12, 2012
Posted in: firefighting, high angle, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

The raw video is of an actual tower  rescue in Washington DC. No, not a telecom climber stranded high up an antenna, but a worker dangling on his safety line after his motorized scaffolding had a catastrophic failure. It was Tower 3 who positioned themselves to be able to use the bucket to go get the worker and unclip him from his system and eliminate the need for any type of rope rescue (damn).

A couple of points to note in the video:

Even though it appeared the Tower was going to be able to get the victim, the guys were still getting dressed out in order to perform a rope based operation should it have been necessary. It was a good job getting plan B in motion in case plan A didn’t work for whatever reason.

The worker hanging in his harness was staying relatively still while hanging. As noted by Dr. Roger Mortimer in his 2011 ITRS presentation, it is the lack of motion while hanging in a harness that seems to cause Suspension Trauma, Harness Hang Syndrome, whatever you want to call it. The point is to get the people to move their legs if they are at all able to. Here is a link to his published work on the topic:

http://www.itrsonline.org/PapersFolder/2011/Mortimer2011_ITRSPaper.pdf

Last, it looked like the bottom end of his safety line was entangled with the scaffolding and pulling tension on the line across his body. I don’t know if that means anything or not, but it should be a consideration during size up.  If the Tower was unable to get to the worker, it’s possible they could get to that safety line and free it up if it were causing issues.

[brightcove vid=1878559651001&exp3=1685956553001&surl=http://c.brightcove.com/services&pubid=29906171001&pk=AQ~~,AAAABvaL9Hk~,mLC66bU8hPOBGO8BPO1coBAeF5n-gkxo&w=300&h=225]

Anchors are the Key

Posted by rescue2training on October 6, 2012
Posted in: firefighting, high angle, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

It’s obvious that anchors are the key to any successful rope rescue operation, but sometimes they just aren’t where we need them or they aren’t as strong as we’d like.  Take a look at the three anchor failure videos below for proof. While there are some slackliners who have an idea of the forces they are putting on their anchors, a lot have no clue. Evidence:

Maritime anchor failure:

If, however, you are interested in a strong portable anchor for your rope or vehicle extrication team, then take a look at the pictures below. James Hurley of Heavy Rescue Solutions has developed an aluminum anchor plate that can be picketed into the ground with three picket. Wrap the handle with webbing and pull away. The plate is roughly 3 feet long and weighs around 25 lbs without the pickets. The pickets can be driven by hand or with an air impact chisel which HRS has developed a special bit for. If driving by and with a sledge, they have developed a fitting to make it less likely to mushroom the head of the picket.

This anchor plate has been pull tested end to end and withstood 44, 000 lbf of force. The ability of the plate to hold a load is clearly dependent on the soil in which the pickets are driven, but early testing R2T did with James was conducted in a moist, loamy soil and the anchor held to around 8000 lbf after it settled in a bit. The newest version of this plate has been revised and James said it can hold quite a bit more than the prototype and with less settling in movement as well. He’s hoping to have everything finalized and ready for production at the beginning of November. If you are interested in the plate or want more information, give James a shout at:

heavyrescuesolutions@gmail.com

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:

 

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.