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Tag: VRT

March 5, 2021 in Training

Training day: GSAR and VRT

The Elgin Fire Department came together last night to do some search and rescue training. We focused on GSAR (ground search and rescue) and VRT (vertical rescue technician).

Scenario: A woman watched her husband walk out to their back property to investigate a noise. He never came back!

Our team interviewed the lady.

They looked at the map and created a plan.

Then they headed out to the last seen position to begin the search.

As the team cleared each square in the search grid they looked high and low to find the missing person. Eventually he was found….in A TREE!

(this has happened before)

We found the search subject a good 20 feet up in a tree. We had to call out our vertical rescue team to set up rigging, ascend the tree, set up more rigging, and lower the subject down from the tree.

Once the subject was on the ground we were able to transport him to a truck to get appropriate medical attention.

All in all a great training scenario.

February 2, 2021 in Training

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!

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