Swiftwater and Flood Boat Rope ‘Systems’ - …

1 ISSUE 45 TECHNICAL rescue14crossings involving rescuers clipped toropes stretched parallel to the currentsoon proved more theoretical thanpractical, and in a couple of instancesfatal. Thus, the "absolute" dictums:"Never tension an in-water crossingline at right angles to the current," and"Never hard tie or clip in to a fixedrope in current," came into being.(Note: Post-Katrina there has somebeen limited discussion about thedifference between an "evacuation"and a "rescue." Some pundits,including your author, argue thatcounting assisting victims from thetops of their houses as water rescuesis inaccurate. A "water rescue"involves assisting someone in peril ofinjury or drowning from the water, orfrom a "situation" in which there is achance that they might be injured ordrown if they end up in the water.)

2 An"evacuation" involves taking someonefrom one "place" to another. Granted,some of the evacuations in NewOrleans were urgent ones; and someof the people trapped in the attics ofhouses or bed-bound qualify asrescues. The helicopter hoists atBoscastle were rescues, since anyonegoing in the water would likely havedrowned; whereas in New Orleansmost of the victims were sitting ontheir roofs surrounded by water lessthan 4 feet deep and not moving. Butbetter definitions are in order.)As mentioned, cross-river ropesystems do have application: Theyare used for setting boats in aparticular spot for river have been used to managedownstream safety during river eventsand Swiftwater rescues and also at thebase of dams and weirs. And mostoften they are built for simpletransportation and evacuations.

3 "First, Get the Line Across"River rescue books and articles galorefeature that simple statement as thefirst instruction. In some instances itmay as well read, "first launch arocket to Mars." That simple taskoften takes a disproportionate amountof time, simply because the rescueteam hasn't determined their optionsbefore and prepared accordingly. Avast array of options and devices exist,as I detailed recently in an article for astateside rescue magazine. Devicesrange from the obvious to the obscure,including the excellent ResQmaxcompressed air line gun.( ) and othervarious purpose-made line guns,down to a home-made "mortar,"manufactured from sewer pipe, andthe bizarre "potato gun," made fromPVC pipe, powered by hair spray, andSwiftwater and FloodBoat & rope Systems Part 6 in our on-going series on updatingtraining and technology for Swiftwater andflood rescueBy Jim SegerstromWhen the Tuolumne County,California, Sheriff's Searchand Rescue Team wasformed in 1975 virtually the first"discipline" we addressed was riverrescue.

4 The unique mixture ofcommercial whitewater guides andclimbers lead to early discussionsabout lines across the river. After all,getting a rope across the river seemedsuch a logical thing to do! Andreflecting on early river rescue trainingand calls around North America, thereseemed to be an emphasis on,somehow, getting a line across beforedoing anything else!This emphasis on cross-river ropesystems is firmly ingrained in thepsyches of rescue teams that evennew documents like the National FireProtection Administration's publisheddocument #1006, the "standards" forrescue technician, requires that a" Swiftwater " technician be able tobuild "tyroleans" across a river!Time and experience however haveproven the opposite. The requirementfor cross-river systems on actualswiftwater operations is relatively often such "systems" come intoplay for either river searches or forevacuating stranded people from oneside of the river to the other.

5 The earlyapplications of mountaineering riverso popular with American delinquentsof all ages! (Simply "google" theexpression "potato gun," and standback.) We have also used a variety ofarborist's devices and bean baglaunchers that are used for traininghunting the "simple is better" category acombination of the Life Safer rescuedisc, ( ) and theREACH from the opposite bank,( ) hasextended our basic rope crossingcapabilities over 140 feet on severaloccasion. We have also experimentedwith a variety of catapults, cross-bows,tear gas launchers shooting cola cans,and other ad hoc it to say that everythingwritten after this point isCOMPLETELY dependent on what hasbeen written up to this point! Get the line across the river!THE SIMPLEST TYROLEANMy definition of a "tyrolean" is atensioned line from point to means that a cross-river tyroleancan be 600 feet in the air, or 6 inches,and still meet the the sake of simplicity and easeof use any time we can avoid makingsuch a " system " a "life line" it is worthdoing, and requires significantly lesseffort.

6 A "lifeline" situation is created,according to many rope rescueexperts, when the failure of the systemwill lead to injury or death of someoneon the system . This definition in turn has lead tostrict dictums regarding doubled ropes,redundant anchors, backed-up knots,and tandem prusik hitches. As theresult, building a tyrolean has gonefrom an exercise to a project,sometimes taking hours to the fire service all of thesestrictures must be in place if thehuman "load" is going to be more thana dizzying 8 feet off the ground!The first point to note is thatproviding you don t use a toothedascender the rope won't break if weover-tension it. second point is that the ropes inthe vast majority of river rescueapplications will NOT be "lifelines.

7 " Ifthey break, (and I hope you get film ofthat because I'd like to see it,) theworst that can happen is that the boatand passengers will go off down theriver!Those two points simplify the rope is across we nextdetermine the location of the bestavailable anchors, and the directionthe water is moving, the " 45 TECHNICAL rescue15vector." Remember, the waterCARVES the turns; it doesn't followthe channel. Thus the current mayactually be moving at angles to thebanks. Having determined anchorsand direction of flow the rescue teamcan then set up a basic tensionedrope, ideally at 45 degrees, or less, tothe current. We started calling thisthe "tensioned diagonal traverse." It isbased on a river crossing method firstdemonstrated to us when we wereteaching an instructors course tocadre at the Marine CorpsMountain Warfare Training Center inBridgeport, California.

8 Theirtechnique involved fully equippedit is virtually impossible to pullsomeone solution was to use an inflatableboat. The resulting " system " simplyinvolves the boat on a pulley. Crew-members stay to the back,downstream end of the boat , to keepthe nose from on the upstream simplyhang on to the rope , lowering orpulling upstream using gloved handsfor power. No friction device is the drag on the boat is severe morerescuers are boat crew signals to positionthe boat in relation to the victimcoming down stream, either right orleft-up the rope or down. As soon asthe victim is alongside the boat , theupstream rescuers simply let the roperun free. The boat is then movingdown the line at nearly the samespeed as the current, thus reducingthe drag on the swimmer and allowingthe rescuers to pull the victim into theboat.

9 The boat goes up against thewall with the victim in the boat , whocan then be extricated by rope ormarines clipping into the rope with acarabiner at their waists. Thetechnique was guaranteed to get thetroops across even if some arrived onthe far bank fully submerged!We adapted the technique so thatwe could slide across, either byourselves, on a river rescue board, orattached by the "cow's tail" on theswiftwater rescue jacket, while holdingon to a patient. (See title pic)The ropeis anchored on the far side, ideallywith a simple tensionless hitch, andthen tensioned with a simple 3 : 1mechanical advantage system , justusing carabiners and prusiks, thesame gear carried by most whitewaterand climbing guides, or with smoothprofile cams as shown in the title everyone is across, the far sideunties the "no knot" hitch so that thelast person can break down thecarabiners and prusiks and swing backacross holding on to the end of system certainly can be usedfor mountaineering stream crossing,but prudence suggests just holding onto the rope , and if one falls to go downthe line hand over hand to the far side.

10 Building this system providestechnical practice, and has some goodapplications, and so the tensioneddiagonal line has been part of thecourse since the instructors in Los Angelestried to adopt it as a back-up system inthe high-speed Flood channel system ,they ran into problems. First washooking in. The rescue swimmer hadjust a moment to hook on as he wentunder the rope at speeds in excess of25 miles per hour. The cure was theuse of larger "ladder" carabiners or thelarge, billed "Sky Hook," used forhelicopter next was the pull exerted athigh speed if they did hook in. Thebest solution for this problem was touse a longer rope and tension it at anangle of 30 degrees or even worse problem was almostimpossible to overcome. Most ofthe Flood channels have verticalwalls.