Mendocino, Albion fire departments test rope rescue skills in mock scenario
Sixteen firefighters from Mendocino and Albion-Little River volunteer fire departments met early Sunday morning, Feb. 2, to finetune technical rope rescue skills by practicing a mock rescue scenario in dense forest a few miles up Comptche-Ukiah Road.
MVFD Capt. Patrick Clark coordinated the training. He kickedoff the morning by sharing information about tensioning anchors, track pulleys, and tag lines connected to a carriage with hitches made of special knots.
The tag lines and track pulleys are part of a system that moves a rescuer across a high line — and then the rescuer is lowered to the victim with a “Norwegian Reeve.”
In this exercise, the mock-victim was located at the bottom of a dry creek bed/ravine. Once the rescuer is lowered and reaches the victim, the rescuer uses a “pickoff” harness to safely connect the victim to the system. This complicated system is then used to raise the rescuer and the victim up from the creek bed and across the high line through the use of track pulleys.
The drill involved the construction of “anchor points” on several trees, and a system of pulleys, ropes and carabineers generating a “mechanical advantage” to lift and move heavy loads (in this case the rescuer and the victim) using few personnel. The firefighters then repeated the drill by switching roles and changing parts of the scenario.
The morning started at 8 a.m. and ended at noon with a barbecue lunch after the ropes were cleaned and engines were restocked.
“I am very pleased to have such a great turnout of volunteer firefighters giving their time to learn new techniques and finetune their skills,” reports Clark.
“Trainings like this are necessary so when the call comes out, and we have an actual patient in distress, we will all be on the same page and efficient in the rescue. We train on rope rescue systems each month on a Tuesday evening, but taking extra time to set up a complex system like this is invaluable.”
The training was so beneficial that Clark plans to hold regular weekend rope rescue drills in the future.