Aerial Rescue Training in NJ

One of the most important things I picked up and will make a stop at my local responders about, (maybe even make a sign for the rescue kit or to pass out to the locals) was about ring color. It was brought up that the rescue personnel that attended are taught that Red attachment points are "Life Rated", we of course do not use that same color. That could prove to be very bad 30 foot up in a tree. In fact I am going to make a flyer about our saddles in general. I am telling all the manufacturers now, I am stealing some of your pictures and warnings to reprint. Get over it, lol.
 
That is my fear Steve. That is why I think it is better to explain our saddles and leave anything about coloring out of the scenario. Basically more to the point that other than center bridge all of our other points require 2 connections. I will certainly be running this flyer past you before I have any conversations with my locals Steve.
 
Steve Connally said:
That's probably specific to their department of the specific device they are using. It's not an NPFA wide thing!
Click to expand...

Steve is right Frank. Our firefighters on our tech rescue team and task force aren't taught that red is life. In all actuality most of our rescue carabiners are gray or silver in the county/task force and 98% are screw lock as well.
In actuality probably half of the volunteers on the task force can't even tie a bowline, clove hitch or understand simple concepts of rope. If I showed anyone on the task force today a srt basal tie and how to lower a climber, they will forget it by next week. The type is so infrequent that our guys spend time brushing up on hose lines, search and rescue, victim removal ect... Thats why we call it high risk low frequency, and it looks like molasses moves faster. Sure there may be teams out there that are great and can do it, but in general if you can't get a ladder truck to it, you better hope your buddy is trained enough to at least get the process started.
And we are so complicated too! It takes us years of doing this every day to set up and design the systems we use. And everyone of us uses something different, even multiple systems in a day. We can't expect them to remember it all.
Please don't take offense to this, I am not poo pooing what you guys are trying to do. The important thing is to get these organizations to understand that our guys (ground guys or climbers) are an asset to them in these situations. And to let us do what we do!
Thanks
 
Whipple and I have been working and brainstorming on an industry wide solution to this problem. I've personally put a lot of hours into this challenge and we hope to get the ball rolling on a fix.
 
I agree Mert, but how many of the rescue teams even know how our harnesses are designed to work. I am really thinking that simple to start.
 
The first responders weren't there to learn how to as much as to gain an appreciation for what we learn and can do. I think the take away for them was that they just need to ask if anyone on a crew has been trained in aerial rescue. What we hope to do with this training is begin the effort within local companies to continue to practice these skills to the point that they are confident in using them in a real situation.

It's my third time going through it and I've had to actually do one though it was an odd situation. We will be looking at ways for us at Keiling TC to hone our skills. It helps that Keith is a Captain in town.

Thanks for jumping on this Frank, Steve and Eric!
 
Hey @ladybird , can you tap in with the female perspective of the workshop and the topic of AR in a more broad sense? Quite often, when you open your mouth, I kinda feel like shutting mine and flexing my ears instead! ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New threads New posts

Back
Top Bottom