techniques

All posts tagged techniques

Rescue in Sedona

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

While Sedona, AZ is the site of countless practice rope rescues thanks to being home to a couple of rope rescue schools, it was recently time to do the real deal.

Thunder Mountain was the location of this rescue after a hiker fell several feet of the trail and down into a ravine and was unable to climb back up due to his injury. Here is a link to the story:

HERE

One thing that was interesting to me is the three hour search for the victim. As an urban fireman, it is neat to see a different perspective of FD operations in n area with more wilderness than urban buildup. I’m pretty sure that if we had to search 3 hours for somebody, most guys would think we were on a wild goose chase after about 15 minutes; and in a big city they would probably be right. It is neat to see that smaller departments are equipped to handle emergencies like this that take longer to handle. Good job Sedona FD!

 

Here is one of the pictures from the article. Interesting to note the cross about 100 feet above the rescuer and victim. I’m curious (morbidly) if this was the site of a previous fatality.

 

Krazy New Rope Technique

Posted by rescue2training on August 11, 2012
Posted in: high angle, rope access, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , . Leave a Comment

While I am not one usually prone to checking something out because of an ad on television, I have to admit that I went straight to the website of Krazy Glue after seeing a window washer stunt where a guy was suspended by two shackle couplers glued together with Krazy Glue.

I was interested to see the rigging involved, so went to their behind the scenes section. It looks like they used a two rope system with the belay hooked to the dorsal D ring and the main attached to the front. There looked to be a sewn loop jumper between the shackles should the glue have failed. You can see the behind the scene shots on their Facebook page here:

http://www.facebook.com/krazyglue/app_131841236955666

 

Take notice that, while the footage is sped up, there are no breaks in the camera editing, it’s one shot from start to finish. I’ve never had that kind of luck with any glue I’ve used, but I guess it’s hard to deny what they did here.

Monday morning QB alert!!!   Just nit picking, but I thought the belay could have been kept a little bit tighter.

Balls Out Rescue

Posted by rescue2training on August 7, 2012
Posted in: firefighting, high angle, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Depending on which news report you read, a 22 year old female either “took a tumble” or fell 90 feet and suffered neck and back injuries as well as severe leg injuries after she fell from Balls Falls and had to be airlifted to a hospital. The technical rescue team decided against a rope system and instead carried her up the trail because of “poor lighting and safety issues.”  HERE

Here is a brief video of the falls:

If I fell from the top of that, I’d call it more than a tumble! While I was obviously not on the scene, it strikes me as odd that lighting is a reason to call off the possibility of a rope rescue. It speaks of the need to both equip your team to operate at night as well as train at night.While cliche, it is true that rescues don’t always happen when it is 72 and sunny.

And from just upstream of the Balls Falls rescue, was a group of three 20 year old guys climbing on the rocks beneath Horseshoe Falls in Niagara. Police rappelled 50 feet down to the group, busted them for disorderly conduct, reckless endangerment, and possession of a controlled substance. A threefor  while on rope! HERE

Busy times on rope for our neighbors to the north!

Lastly, a lucky close call for a couple and there dog in Northwest Spokane, WA after they’re Toyota pick flew 50 feet down an embankment and their trailer catapulted a few hundred feet further down the hill. It looks like Spokane Fire did a steep slope evacuation to get the patients up the hill. Do you have your game plan down for how your department does slope evacuations?

HERE

Practice makes perfect

Posted by rescue2training on August 2, 2012
Posted in: high angle, rope access, rope rescue, technical rescue. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a Comment

The rope rescue team from Bonneville, WA gets it’s practice by helping out during the shutdown of the Bonneville Dam. The members are sent down the side to take care of trees growing out of the walls as well as being on standby while biologists are on rope to do their own bit of inspection.

It seems like a good way for the team get some really great on rope training experience in the place where they are most likely to get a call.

 

Article Here

 

Weekend update with Bo Lin

Posted by rescue2training on July 29, 2012
Posted in: firefighting, high angle, rope access, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Here are a few different rope articles to whet your kernmantle whistle for the weekend.

First up is an article from the Art of Manliness website sent to us by all around manly man and HazMat guru Jack Spencer. It showcases an exercise done in Navy BUD/S training where candidates tie knots underwater. It’s not a huge mental leap to figure out where this might be a useful process to go through: retrieving objects from under water, stabilization of vehicles in moving water, etc… If nothing else it will help break up the boredom of doing the same drill over and over again. There’s a ton of other cool things on this website that are not rope related, yet somehow are still manly.

Manly Link

Next up is a the way window washers SHOULD be rescued when hanging 35 floors up. The difference in the key words used to describe this incident is a pretty stark contrast to the way the FDNY described it’s window washer rescue: Professional, training, safe vs. dangerous, heroic, 45 minutes with a diamond tipped angle grinder, etc…  What I’m getting at is that these types of operations are difficult to PLAN for, they are relatively easy to PREPARE  for. The distinction being that you can’t know exactly where an incident like this will occur, but you can know that an incident like this will occur somewhere. Victim pick off should be a pretty straightforward option for a team that says they are capable of performing a rope rescue.

Video of pickoff

Article about the rescue

My kind of guy. Rescuer calls it “fun”

 

And last up is a rescue of a cliff jumper in Alabama. Not your Red Bull type extreme jumping, just a local swimming hole.  It looks like a combined ground and helo based plan. As we’ve stated before, the hallmark of a good team is to have a Plan B,C, and D in place. All of those moving pieces still didn’t prevent locals from going right back to jumping though.

 

Vide0s and stills of cliff rescue

 

Follow up on Waterfall Rescue

Posted by rescue2training on July 22, 2012
Posted in: rope rescue, technical rescue. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

If you remember the “Real Deal” rescue that occurred at Wallace Falls in Northeast Washington that we covered here a couple of weeks ago, then you will surely be interested in the follow up on it with an in depth look at thee operation. The article is written by Tom Vines and was brought to our attention by Mike Forbes from Spokane Fire.

Previous Coverage

 

http://www.firefighternation.com/article/technical-rescue-usar-0/washington-state-rescuers-complete-complex-challenging-rescue

 

 

 

Car vs Elevator

Posted by rescue2training on July 20, 2012
Posted in: firefighting, rope access, rope rescue, technical rescue. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

And the elevator shaft wins! A Lexus SUV was driven in to an elevator shaft designed for vehicles in a parking garage. The problem was, there was no elevator car there. According to the articles, the parking garage has 4 citations against it for elevator problems in the past two years. The driver of the vehicle also has 11 drivers license suspensions against him. It’s like the perfect storm of where you don’t want your vehicle to be parked.

 


Anyhow, they had to go down the shaft and extricate one of the workers, then stand by while the vehicle was recovered.

Here are two links to the story, the first has a video, the second has pictures.

 

http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/164983/two-injured-after-car-falls-down-garage-elevator-shaft?ap=1&MP4

 

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20120717/upper-east-side/car-falls-down-elevator-shaft-upper-east-side-parking-garage

 

Shoulda Been a Rope Rescue

Posted by rescue2training on July 14, 2012
Posted in: firefighting, rope access, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a Comment

So… not being there it is hard to know, but from looking at the pictures and the videos from around the web it seems that maybe these window washers stuck waaaay up on the 42nd floor (but only a floor below an outside terrace) could have been rescued a bit quicker and with a much higher degree of safety than what you see here. I’m sure the guy on the scaffolding who has had this happen to him two times before this, has seen all the ways to do this rescue. Time for a new job for that guy.

I am aware of the friction between the FDNY the NYPD ESU team, but 4o minutes using a “diamond blade angle grinder” to cut the window and haul these guys in through a window doesn’t seem like the best way to do business. Why add the potential for falling glass to this operation if you don’t need to? I think there is a time and a place for cutting a window, but this just doesn’t seem like it.

If you have any comments, feel free to leave them below.

Here is a short video of the operation:

http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=90051&sitesection=nydailynews&VID=23657684

A couple of pics:

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/new_york&id=8732245

Walk the CN Tower

Posted by rescue2training on July 12, 2012
Posted in: rope access, rope rescue, technical rescue, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a Comment

Apparently, you can get all of the thrills of rope access, rope rescue, just being at height, etc… without any of the training. I’ve got no affiliation with this, but thought that it was interesting just the same. Should you want that stomach turning feeling of looking over the edge of a high drop, you can do it for about $200.

Of course, I’d rather use that money to buy a new bosuns chair and get paid to do work at that height as I’m sure most people reading this would. Of course, that’s what makes the rope community a bit unique.

http://www.cntower.ca/en-CA/Plan-Your-Visit/Attractions/EdgeWalk.html

Looks like synchronized swimming or something:

Pit Bull on Rope

Posted by rescue2training on July 5, 2012
Posted in: rope access, rope rescue, technical rescue. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a Comment

The Technical Rescue Team from Gresham, OR rescued a family Pitbull from the wall of a quarry after the dog had gone missing for a couple of days. The dog was spotted by quarry personnel.

Listening to the video, it seems the team used a ladder as a high directional to get out over the edge and keep from knocking down debris that might cause the dog to lose it’s footing.

One neat point was that the local Humane Society told the rescuer being lowered to bring along a T Shirt from the dog’s family. At first I was thinking it was for some sort of crazy improvised harness. Turns out it was so the dog could sniff it and know that the rescuer was one of the pack. I wouldn’t have thought to do that. I guess that’s why it pays to have subject matte experts around.

Thanks to Collin Moon of   Elevated Safety for tuning us in to this story.

http://www.cbs12.com/news/top-stories/stories/vid_1105.shtml

 

Maybe the dog needs to be trained like this one: