Elgin vertical rescue team grows

This last weekend we had firefighter Andrew Siemer go through the Vertical Rescue Technician 1 class and pass. This grows our vertical rescue team to two members, Andrew and Mark Rodriguez.

Vertical Rescue helps our team in cases where we need to get down into a ravine, get victims from a bridge, or if we need to go down into a cistern. It seems like Elgin is a pretty flat place, but any drop over 6′ is technically considered a vertical mission. Other non-obvious missions this is useful for are getting people out of trees, lowering people from two story buildings, etc.

In this class we started by building knot skills.

Then we hiked down to a location of a cliff in the green belt area of Austin. We started to learn how to pick appropriate anchors and what sorts of issues we might consider for rappeling. We learned how to configure different rappel systems.

Then we went down the cliff!

One of my favorite activities of the class was night time problem-solving. In the black of night, we configured a rappel system. Then we each had to rappel down the cliff with only a headlight looking for our target. In this case a rope with a cluster of knots.

Once we located the knot cluster we had to invert and hang upside down to reach the knots. Identify the knots. Then clear all the knots from the rope and re-tie them. All while upside down. This took at least several minutes. Then put the knots safely back on a narrow ledge.

Overall this was a great class that should provide quite a bit of benefit to the town of Elgin!