Ropes and Knots

In the fire academy, basic fire service knots are taught and just as easily forgotten without practice and training.  Checkout the Rescue Knots for Roco Students downloadable PDF file.

Tree Climber Rescue

Checkout the two videos below with some great game plans and tips on rescuing someone out of a tree or hanging in a harness after falling out of a hunting blind.

Harness Induced Pathology is a silent killer in High Angle Rope Rescue, it can also be known as Harness hanging syndrome, Suspension Trauma, Suspension Induced Shock, and Etc.

Skeletal-muscle pump

Did you know that your muscle help pump the blood thru your body? The skeletal-muscle pump is a collection of skeletal muscles that aid the heart in the circulation of blood. It is especially important in increasing venous return to the heart, but may also play a role in arterial blood flow.

Reference material:

• Here is a link to a great article called Suspension trauma on the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s website.
• While the post, Best Safety’s Chip Macdonald reviews the CMC / ROCO FreeTech™ Harness is an advertisement/product review.  Chip put a great deal of useful information in it worth a read.

Below is a PowerPoint on the effects of falling.

Tech Rescue Team

When the photos below first made the rounds on Social Media Saturday, many responders wondered what the correct course of action should be to rescue the trapped pilot. Here’s the answer, get your Tech Rescue Team there!

A plane crashed into the trees near the Gettysburg Regional Airport Saturday afternoon. The pilot, an 87-year-old local man, was not injured. The pilot experienced an engine failure and tried to return to the airport.  The plane ended up in the trees about 50 feet off the ground. The man called police after the crash from his cell phone. The single-engine plane faced nose-down for about four hours while rescue officials figured out how to free the pilot, Shank said. The plane was in a stable setting and the pilot was alert, so there was no rush to get him out, he said.

“He was in very good spirits the whole time there,” he said. “He was conscious, alert and oriented the whole incident, which lasted almost four hours. I think by the end, he was a little anxious to get out, as we all were to get him out of the situation he was in.”

Police, who arrived on scene around 12:30 p.m., originally thought they would use a Maryland State Police helicopter to fly above the plane and send a man down with a cable to get the pilot out, Shank said. However, the wind from the helicopter could have made the plane too unstable, so they decided otherwise, he said.

Frederick County Advanced Technical Rescue, assisted by crews in York and Adams counties, used ladders to climb from the ground to the plane, Shank said. After cutting branches from around the plane down, rescue workers put the man in a sling and lowered him to the ground, he said.  Read the complete story here: The Evening Sun

Photo Credit: Harrison Jones for the Evening Sun

Photo Credit: Harrison Jones for the Evening Sun